Limited Edition Barbies – A Pain or Pleasure to Collectors?
Limited edition Barbies are to Barbie collectors what a rare bottle of wine is to a wine collector: a wonderful find! After all, limited editions Barbies are the lifeblood that pulses through the veins of the Barbie collecting body. Sure, you have many collectors who may collect vintage dolls, while others specialize in themed collections, such as holiday themes or “evening at the show†themes. Yet many a collector loves to have the limited edition Barbie simply because it promises to be a rarity some day – usually sooner rather than later.
While the number of available dolls is not being daily reduced simply because dolls are being ravaged by the tooth of time, but instead because only a limited number was produced after which – quite literally – the producers throw away the mold.
Yet not all is well on the collecting front. As a matter of fact, to some collectors these limited edition Barbies are a pain rather than a pleasure. They bemoan the fact that at times they will not be able to purchase the dolls they want when they want them, and then have to wait for other collectors to turn around and sell their dolls – often at inflated prices. Usually, these kinds of collectors care very little about “NRFB†(never removed from box) and similar designations, and instead enjoy posing their dolls and displaying them in their homes. Beginning collectors may also fall into this category, and may actually feel a bit put off at not being able to obtain the dolls of their choice when they are first joining the ranks of the serious collectors.
Granted, both sides make a lot of sense. Yet if you are a serious Barbie collector, you will need to ask yourself this question: do you want to collect dolls for the sake of collecting and personally displaying them in your home, or are you collecting with one eye on the possibility that your investments will increase in value? Sure, if you are happy to just add beautiful dolls to your collection now and then, and you do not mind paying a pretty penny for them, then it will probably not matter to you if a doll is a limited edition Barbie or simply a run of the mill doll that is still in production and probably will continue to be so for a while to come yet. Similarly, you will need to be able to stomach the fact that the beautiful doll you just bought will probably decline in value rather than increase in value, simply because so many are flooding the market, that – like so many other items – supply and demand will remain even, and perhaps tip in favor of the supply rather than the demand side of the equation.
What it boils down to is the fact that there are two different kinds of collectors: the ones who are hoping that their collections will increase in value and pick their pieces with an eye on this possibility, and those who simply collect for aesthetics and do not really care if their collection increases in value, decreases, or stays somewhere in between. While Mattel does its level best to cater to both kinds of collectors, when a casual collector is unable to obtain a limited doll to which she has taken a fancy, it will not help to remember all the other dolls she was able to purchase without any problem at all. Thus, it is a foregone conclusion that limited edition Barbies will be both a pain and a pleasure to collectors – yet they are here to stay, and hopefully Mattel’s willingness to cater to both kinds of collectors will alleviate at least a bit of the pain.
