you never know what's inside
Last week I was able to complete my Ski Fun series after almost 25 years. I didn’t it in the long term. It just happened. So now I have the the Ken, Barbie ( from my childhood, her Ski is missing on the pic but I have it) and the Midge …. that I always wanted so badly but I never got her. Poor me… had to grew up before I was able to buy her. Anyway now I can play with Barbie, Ken, Midge, Snowball( the dog) , Blizzard ( the horse), the carriage (carriage + sleigh) and the Chocolate Shop.
Last week I made a short post about Talking Barbie who is talking Swedish. Today I show you a video about the Spanish version. She is obviously repaired to talk but the quality is poor and the doll is talking a bit to fast. I’m not able to understand what she is saying although I speak Spanish. Anyway, here’s the video…
Several weeks ago I posted what Talking Barbie said in Japan. Now I have found out what she says in Sweden thanks to a Swedish collector.
Det är skoldags(=time to go to school)
Jag tycker om att vara finklädd (=I like to be nicely dressed)
Jag ska gå på party (=I´m going to a Party)
Kom så går vi och köper kläder (=Come on we will buy clothes)
She also says: Jag tycker om fina kläder, (=I like fine clothes).
For all who always wanted to know how a knee joint works but never damaged a Barbie doll to find it out, here is the result. (I already got the doll with the broken knee joint.) I haven’t destroyed the doll myself. I think the pics explain how the position is held and why we can bent the knee joint three times.
In the last weeks I had the chance to complete my 1977 Superstar Barbie doll. She came with her dress, earrings and her ring. Back then when she was released with a dress, a boa, a pair of pink Superstar shoes, earrings, a necklace and a ring.
Here are some pictures of the now completed outfit:
Have you asked yourself where this name came from? Well, the answer is easy… Harold “Matt” Mattson and Elliot Handler melted their names togehter into the name Mattel. That’s how the company got the name and it was founded in 1945.
Well, I’m going to tell you an interesting story today. When I was 11 years old I saw a promo pic of the Pool Fun Kelly and I wanted to have her for my collection. She was cute and I liked Shelly/Kelly from the very first start. Cute face, cute doll!
I don’t remember exactly where I saw the pic. Maybe it was a promo calendar or a Barbie Journal. Anyway, I saw her and I wanted her but for some reasons I don’t know she was never available in the town where I came from. I searched but I didn’t find her. For a long time I tried to find out what was going on in times before the Internet was a wide spread medium. I found no information, nobody knew anything. I thought maybe it was a fake.
Many years later I suddenly found an Afro-American version of the Pool Fun Kelly in the US. I bought her immediately. Here’s a pic.
With the name I was able to find out more about this series. I found out that this series was released but nothing more. I was later (approx. in 2005 or 2006) able to find the other dolls.
When you consider Vintage Barbie dolls you might have noticed that some of these dolls have very pale lips, not the normal pink or red lips. Why are they so pale? Well, the paint faded. That means that the colour pigments of the original colour disappeared or bleached out. And it looks like this… there are so many shades but I have only three example that I can show you at the moment. I hope that this might help you because it’s really hard to find detailed information about this phenomenon and all the shades.
When we consider that they came in the following make up schemes … then you maybe understand what I want to express.
Today I’d like to show another set of my favorite Kelly/Shelly sets. This set was only avaiable at Toys R Us in 2002. Kelly/Shelly is dressed as a fairy and her friend Liana is dressed up as a little movie star. Both of them have additional outfits. Kelly comes with a wedding dress and Liana comes with a ballerina outfit.
I tried to find all of these Kelly sets to provide a good overview for other collectors or those who want to collect and don’t know what they have no matter where they found it.
Do you know the TV series “I dream of Jeannie” from the 1960s? I wasn’t born in the 1960s but I loved to watch it in my school free days in the 1990s. In 2000 there was a ” I dream of Jeannie” Barbie doll as Collector doll. I liked the design and wanted to own her. Just because she’s a wonderful addition for any collection and due to the fact that I liked the series. I like all the details although I wonder where her golden shoes came from.
In the last years there was another “I dream of Jeannie” Barbie doll released with the Vintage face (The mold used for the first Barbie dolls until 1965) but I didn’t like her so much. I think mine is prettier.