When Bruce Zalkin, a 59-year-old New York native who has lived in Florida since 1976, looks at even the earliest editions of the unique 1959 Barbie, he can see subtle differences that separate a doll price hundreds of dollars from one price just pennies.
The very first version of the doll – with downcast eyes, a curly blonde ponytail and a black-and-white striped swimsuit – has holes in her feet so she will be attached to a stand. The second version had the holes patched after children broke the stands. The third edition of Barbie wears mascara and the fourth version is the primary to be comprised of a vinyl plastic mix as a substitute of polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
Zalkin began his Barbieland journey in his twenties when he ran a toy store in Tampa that sold cast-iron Tonkin Replica Trucks and antiques. It was the early Nineteen Nineties, and his staff, consisting mostly of older women, convinced him to focus as a substitute on the intricacies and appeal of Barbie dolls.
“They taught me everything about Barbies,” said Zalkin Assets, “all the things I desired to know and more.”
Zalkin has been selling Barbie dolls for over 30 years, and has developed a knack for spotting the subtle differences between the earliest versions of Mattel’s celebrity bombshell. Unofficially, nonetheless, he has been selling toys since a much younger age, and learned the craft from influential women in his life: At age five, his grandmother introduced him to her hobby of collecting glassware, pottery and figurines in his hometown of Liberty, New York. At 13, after his family moved to Tampa, he decided that was “old lady stuff” and started buying and selling toys as a substitute.
Courtesy of Bruce Zalkin (2)
In his 40-year profession as an antique dealer, he now deals primarily with Barbie collections – mostly vintage models with seductive downcast eyes and feathery blonde ponytails. Over the years, Zalkin has sold an estimated $2 million price of vintage Barbies on eBay. Toy showsand auctions. While he doesn’t recommend others take up the occupation (it’s “just not a good investment,” he says), he has managed to harness the doll’s charm, variety and nuance – together with its lucrative market power – to create a sustainable livelihood for himself.
“I’m not a real Barbie collector, I’m more of a dealer,” he said Assets. “This is how I earn my living.”
Buyers of his vintage Barbies include each nostalgic people and skilled collectors who long for the dolls they grew up with or were never allowed to purchase.
“There are children whose parents would never buy them a Barbie doll,” Zalkin said.
Then there are special lines for collectors that Mattel introduced within the Eighties – including limited edition dolls designed by respected designer Bob Mackie And Silkstone modelsthat got here onto the market within the 2000s. They often feature lingerie and, in line with Zalkin, “were never intended for children.”
However, they’re “highly sought after by collectors” and will be price as much as 400 on eBay.
On the hunt for rarities
Discovering the proper collections could be a pain, because the rare dolls Zalkin is on the lookout for aren’t easy to search out at flea markets or on social media.
This week, Zalkin visited a Florida woman’s doll collection of over 150 dolls. She decided to sell them because she is moving and her child has outgrown them. Zalkin brought Marl Davidsona friend for 38 years, whom he describes as “the best dealer in the world”.
Looking through the dolls, Zalkin said, “She didn’t have any super rare pieces,” but luckily for him, a lot of the dolls were vintage, meaning that they had been released before the Eighties.
Zalkin and Davidson spent about $4,000 to buy the gathering. After purchasing, the duo spent about two hours packaging the dolls, wrapping them individually in paper or plastic (so “we don’t mess up their hair”) and packing the dolls’ accessories in ziplock bags.
Next comes the following phase of the dolls’ journey: resettlement. “It’s going to take a couple of months to sort everything out,” Zalkin said. “We bought 100 pairs of shoes, all in little bags, that need to be sorted to see if they’re vintage or modern, because people pay very different amounts depending on what they are.”
The accessories, he said, often sell for more cash than clothes and sometimes even than the dolls themselves, because “those are the first things to get lost or sucked in.”
Why is a Barbie well worth the money?
The answer, Zalkin said, often is dependent upon how much she was loved, how rare the problem was and whether her clothes bore Mattel’s signature shiny pink Barbie label.
“Even today, all clothes have labels,” he says. In the Nineteen Sixties, he adds, “Mattel sold pattern books so women could sew clothes for Barbies because it was cheaper than buying the clothes from Mattel.”
The rarity of Barbie clothes and finishes could make the difference between a doll being price pennies or over $5,000.
In the Nineteen Sixties, for instance, Mattel released a series of Barbies that only available in Japan. Clothes from this line, Zalkin said, “are super expensive and super rare. I’ve only had a few of these outfits and they sell for several thousand dollars.”
Zalkin has sold individual dolls for $10,000. He recalled an octogenarian couple’s lifelong collection — over 500 “mint, original dolls and clothing still in their original packaging” — which he sold for $250,000, mostly to personal collectors.
Vintage Barbies, especially the earliest versions of the doll, are likely to be the Most worthy. An original 1959 Barbie in perfect condition is price between $5,000 and $10,000, Zalkin said.
“Some people collect as an investment or they want pristine items and are willing to pay top dollar for them,” he said. “Other collectors just want the doll, get it for a tenth of the price, redo the makeup, redo the hair and have the doll they want.”
Of course, this occupation shouldn’t be without its challenges. One of the most important challenges, Zalkin says, is finding collections or inventory to purchase. He gets most of his business through word of mouth, with sites like Facebook Marketplace and Craiglist accounting for less than a small portion of his sales. Additionally, he often buys back collections from people he’s made sales with over his a long time of business who turn to him to part with their collections after life events like death or divorce.
Greta Gerwig has created a brand new generation of collectors
Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated Barbie The film released last yr has attracted more collectors to the market. Dolls that were featured within the film, especially ‘Pregnant mosquito’ And “Growing up as a skipper” (with a rotating arm that makes her grow taller and her chest expand) the worth has doubled.
“As soon as the movie came out, there was a huge uptick in Barbie sales,” he said, adding that prices still have not returned to pre-movie levels.
Accordingly Estimates According to Barbie Wiki, a fandom website, there are over 100,000 Barbie collectors worldwide.
“The main market is mostly older women, either new collectors because of the new movie or older women whose brothers blew up their dolls with GI Joe or whose parents sold them at a flea market,” Zalkin said. “Believe it or not, the gay male community buys a lot of Barbie dolls too.”
The key to Barbie’s market power
For higher or worse, Barbie is undoubtedly a cultural icon. She was the centerpiece of Museum exhibitions and was the topic of a documentary on Hulu. Gerwig’s film grossed nearly $1.3 billion on the worldwide box office, becoming one in every of the few female-dominated movies among the many highest-grossing movies of all time. NPR reported.
The doll was also a turning point for toy manufacturers and young children alike. According to a story by Encyclopedia BritannicaBaby dolls were the norm within the early Nineteen Fifties and sometimes encouraged young girls to assume themselves as educators, moms or caregivers. Barbie, alternatively, was marketed as a girl of many professions – akin to hospital volunteer, astronaut, surgeon and CEO – with matching outfits. When children played along with her, they might imagine jobs during which women are underrepresented.
Nevertheless, the doll manufacturer faced resistance for setting unrealistic body standards. Researchers in Finland concluded that an actual woman with the doll’s proportions wouldn’t have enough body fat for menstruation.
Between 2012 and 2018, Mattel faced several quarters with declining sales and the criticism continued when other firms produced dolls that higher reflected the variety of Americans by way of size, color, and physical abilities.
In the mid-2010s, after Mattel released more diverse dolls, sales increased. According to Mattel websiteBarbie is now “the most diverse doll line,” available in 35 skin tones, 97 hairstyles and 9 body types.” The brand has since launched dolls with disabilities akin to Down syndrome, prosthetic legs and wheelchairs.
It’s been a long time since Zalkin first delved into the Barbie world as a seller, but he has no plans to stop. He recently launched his own auction site, partially to avoid eBay’s increasing seller fees, and already has over 150 toy shows under his belt, which he runs along with his wife, Laura.
“When we’re at a buying show, we sit behind the tables while people come to sell their stuff,” he said. “Of course, if they have Barbie dolls, they go to my wife, who says, ‘My husband makes Barbies. I make all the trucks out of cast iron.'”
