1997 BLONDE CLUB HOLIDAY BARBIE!

This 1997 Blonde Holiday Barbie is one I've been watching for a long long time...

This Barbie was only released to 'Barbie Club Members' around the time of the Holidays... meaning, unless you paid the fee to join the Barbie Collector Club, you couldn't have this Barbie (unless you bought it from another member, but they would have jacked up the price!).

The only prices I could find for this Barbie were between $100 to $150... however, patience is a great virtue and after months and months of watching, I finally found one for only a fraction of the price!

I am very excited to add this Barbie to my daughter's collection and again, this is a picture of the Barbie was won at auction so I will still have to do my own inspection when it arrives but I'm confident that this Barbie will be in great shape!

Very excited to cross this one off our collection list!!

I'll be posting updates about the inspection of all 3 of our latest Holiday Barbies Barbies!

2001 Celebration Barbie is now on it's way!

 

Shortly after obtaining the 2002, 

I was able to locate a 2001 Celebration Barbie at about the same price as the 2002.

Just like the 2002, I had to be patient with the auctions, but it paid off and we were able to grab this one!

We're waiting for this one to arrive as well and we will be doing a full inspection of it when it does, but like the 2002, it looks in great condition!

The reason these Barbies are not called 'Holiday Barbies' but are still part of the collection is due to Matell trying to take a sharp left in the series after the value of the collection crashed...

After 1998 Holiday Barbie was released, everything that seemed collectable started to become... worthless.  There were just too many too soon, and when everyone has one, then no one wants one, making the overall value next to nothing.

With the new millennium coming up, they decided to release a new Barbie at the same time as they would the Holiday Barbies, but they just gave them a different name, the Millennium Barbies.  They were set up for 1999 and 2000 release... however, they decided to try and 'rename' the Holiday series again, and moved onto a new name, the 'Celebration' Barbie... which would be the 2002 and 2001 releases.  In 2003, Matell even went further then that to come up with a completely new Barbie, name it the Winter Fantasy 2003 Barbie, again releasing it the same time the Holiday Barbies would have been released... it wasn't until 2004 that they finally decided to go back to the Holiday Barbie name.

Many thought and still think today, that because of the 'break' Matell took in the name, that the 1999 through 2003 Barbies shouldn't count as part of the series, but after awhile, it just became accepted.

I mean, how can you have a 'series' if there's 4 years missing of Barbies, it would seem very odd.

So now we have the Millennium Barbies for 1999 and 2000, the Celebration Barbies for 2001 to 2002 and the Winter Fantasy for 2003!

Awaiting our newest addition, the 2002 Celebration Barbie!

 

This here is actually a picture of the Barbie that we were able to obtain on eBay!

Thanks to eBay's 'eBucks' system, their buy back program, we were able to obtain quite a bit over these past few months and used it to our full advantage in obtaining a handful of new Holiday Barbies to add to my daughter's collection!

This was the first of three we obtained, and thankfully, we were patient with the auction.

Due to the upcoming Holidays and inevitable winter approaching, everyone is staying off their computers and working to prepare themselves at home.  This is typical for anyone when the weather is nice, I mean, who wants to stay inside with 70-80 degrees outside?  Certainly not me or my children!

However, this gave a great opportunity to snatch a few auction Barbies and I was thankful to find this one at the price that I did!  Normally these are one of the hard to find and expensive Holiday Barbies, but we were able to grab it at less then $15!

I will post updates here when it arrives after we do a thorough inspection of it, but from the pictures, it looks to be in great shape!