Barbie does make some VERY expensive barbie dolls, the initial price to purchase one from Matell starting around $500, but there are also others where the price is next to nothing, so how did I decide that I wanted the 'Holiday' Barbies? Simple, they only come out with one every year.
This is what makes it the ideal collection! Where others will collect all things 'corvette' or all things 'Harry Potter', I chose something that is done once only one time a year. Another thing that most people don't know about the Holiday Barbie is, it started in 1988. That means it only has about 2 decades worth of Holiday Barbies, making it a lot easier to collect them all and then keep collecting every year on forward.
If you decide to collect Barbies, starting with the first one ever made, you'll find yourself in a house FULL of Barbies with barely enough room to move. While this might sound cool, it could be a headache to create a checklist and extremely frustrating with Barbie releasing new Barbies almost every day.
If you're still considering starting a Barbie collection on your own aside from Holiday Barbies, consider looking up Barbies under the Pink, Black, Gold or even Platinum label.
You need to have a basic focus of what you want to collect and, more importantly, a collection check list such as the one I've listed here in my blogs.
Being organized is the best thing for any collection. If you know what you're looking for, and you create a goal for yourself on what you want to collect, you'll enjoy yourself a lot more in your collecting.
In the end, when you sell your collection (if that's what you choose to do) you're going to want to do it at a real auction house, not eBay. In a real auction house, you'll find true fans whom you know will take care of your collection that you'd spent part of your life collecting for your child, and these people will be willing to pay anything to carry on that collection. People online who are selling them are only looking to make a quick buck off you with inflated prices, that's it.
All in all, as stated in previous blogs, one Barbie of each year (fulfilling the 1988 to 2012) can earn you between $10,000 to $15,000! A good starting amount of money for children going to college!
Now we move onto my personal collection!
Do you have suggestions for auction houses? I want to start looking into selling my collection. I was born in '87 and my parents got me the first doll for Christmas and just kept doing it year after year. Now I'm really grateful they did because I want to turn this collection into a down payment on my first house! Any advice you have on where to sell would be appreciated!
ReplyDeleteWell, first off I wouldn't suggest any type of online auction house. It's way too risky to handle that kind of money over the internet for both the buyer AND the seller.
ReplyDeleteRight now, I haven't looked up any auction houses personally as I do not plan on selling these for another decade, however, when I do go to look for Auction houses, I plan on hitting the 'big' cities first.
I find that there are many auction houses out there that are more then willing to help you bring a FULL collection to their auctions. You want to find one that specializes in this particular market as well because you want the crowd to be full of people like you, people who want this collection, or else no one will bid and that's the last thing you want.
So if I were you, I'd do a bit of research online for a high-end auction house that focuses on Barbies or specifically antique toys or one that even focuses strictly on Matell items.
I bet if you even gave Matell a call, they might know exactly where you can look for these places because it also increases their own value and publicity so it'd be in their best interest to know and point out these types of places to dedicated hard-on collectors.
I didnt realize they were worth that much. I have every single one of them so far. All in top shape! Definitely hanging on to them.
ReplyDeleteThey are starting to become worth a whole lot more lately.
ReplyDeleteThe 1988 and 1989 still hold a large value, but the 1990s was the time for over-production in all things collectable (Baseball Cards, Beanie Babies, Hot Wheels, and of course Holiday Barbies), making their values crash significantly.
However, starting around 2002, the values started to climb back up, making them individually worth between $70 to $300 each, but having a complete collection is an amazing achievement in my opinion and to have them all in top shape is the best thing to hope for!
-NewLife4Me I'd definately recommend holding onto your collection and keep on adding with each new year to keep that collection complete!
Just remember this, the very first Barbie ever produced was sold at less then a few dollars a piece, now, the clothes alone are worth between $500 to $700 and a pristine, new in box has sold as high as $15,000! ^_^
I have been collecting Holiday Barbies for my granddaughter since her birth in 1991......how do i find out the value of each one?
ReplyDelete$10000? No, I don't think so! The first Barbie costs something like $200. All the other ones are worth from $20 to $50. How do you come to 10 k? : )))
ReplyDelete