Roll-y Poll-y Doll Heads: A Venture Into Collecting Vintage Barbie And Other Fashion Dolls
06.25.07 By Deanna Dahlsad
After getting so many old empty fashion doll cases, I decided I needed something, or someone, to put in them. So out rummaging, again, I allowed myself to buy a plastic baggy of fashion doll heads.
Four of them, to be precise, for one dollar. (A girl’s got to start somewhere, and, as they say, why not start at the top?)
Only once I got home I realized I had no idea about the heads. Who were they? What bodies did I need? Were they worth anything?
I turned to the Internet. After looking around at fashion doll identification sites, like DollReference.com’s vintage Barbie and friends pages, I remembered why I didn’t have many Barbie dolls in my fashion doll collection: Babs is intimidating.
Barbie isn’t just two-faced — she’s got multiple faces. And bodies. And friends. And wanna-be imitations, and wanna-be imitations of friends. Barbie is so confusing that when I try to find my favorite childhood Barbie, the 1970’s Miss America Barbie doll, I’m not even sure which one I had… That’s sad.
As if this alone weren’t confusing, there are all the condition issues… What’s ‘normal wear’ for a Barbie? What’s horrible? What can be fixed? I know it sounds strange coming from a woman who collects misfit toys, but what is worth fixing on an old Barbie doll?
Frankly, I’ve long avoided Barbie and her ilk because I can’t follow and keep up with all the Barbie lore & identification stuff. Unless she’s unopened in a box, I haven’t a clue. But, every now and then, I wonder… Should I grab that old Barbie doll?
A few days later, despite having recently been made away of my utter Barbie ignorance, I spotted two vintage Barbies at a garage sale. Both had the old hard, non-bendable, legs, and one had a the old face with the hard molded lashes. Each was marked $5, but it was late in the day and I offered them $5 for the two of them. They said yes, even tossed a retro generic fashion doll case in for free, and I took them home.
Relatively certain that at least the bodies were authentic vintage Mattel dolls, I was now more concerned with the conditions of the dolls. There were some dents, broken fingers, and other signs of play.
The older head had faded paint and a non-factory issued off-center chin cleft. Were these fixable things, or did they render the dolls worthless?
I returned to the Internet and found DollRestoration.com. Here there is more vintage Barbie doll information than you can shake a stick at. So much, that I retrieved my roll-y poll-y doll heads to see if I could identify them here.
But quickly, my head began to swim again. Why did the body say Midge — had the heads been put onto different doll bodies? Was this Skipper? Or was my girl’s nose too pointy? Was this a bubblecut Barbie, or was the hair cut or something? P.J. started to look like Midge… And why wasn’t I seeing that blond doll head anywhere?
The only thing I was pretty sure about at this point was that the one doll head, the one with the black hair which was slightly larger than the Barbie heads wasn’t made by Mattel and that she was likely some cheap imitation fashion doll.
OK, I told myself, so what if you don’t know who they are… Are they repairable? Which begged the question: should they even be repaired?
I decided the wise thing to do was to find out — and who better to ask than Krista, of Krista’s Doll Restoration.
Krista entered college as an art major where she discovered her love of art history. She graduated from UCLA’s College of Fine Arts with a B.A. in art history and now applies her artistic talent, research abilities and love of preserving history in the restoration of Barbie dolls. She’s been doing this for 12 years now, and it’s more than a business; it’s a passion.
Krista kindly agreed to share her experience with me (us) and answer my questions.
Are the dolls worth my $6 investment?
Should I repair or restore any of the dolls?
Can they even be fixed?
Will I ever learn how to identify a vintage Barbie doll? (Or must my doll heads remain body-less forever!)
Stay tuned and find out.
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Article Tags: Barbie, doll heads, dolls, Krista Doll Restoration, Mattel, repair, restore================
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June 26th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I think the Bubblecut is totally fixable. Krista could whip her into shape in no time. She worked a miracle on three of my dolls who had horrendous green ear!
June 28th, 2007 at 1:38 am
[...] As you’ll recall, I met Krista while trying to identify my $6 worth of vintage Barbie dolls and fashion doll heads. [...]