Have you ever heard from a company named Congost? Me neither until I found a very interesting book written by Michael Augustyniak. In the meantime he died but I still have the book and think it is a good source to get an overview what the global Barbie doll market has to offer. Recently I found several Spanish Barbie dolls made for the Spanish market ( not for the rest of Europe). Of course a collector wants to own what they can’t own. That’s the desire of collecting ( I think). Anyway, since I speak Spanish it’s no problem to look around. I did so and found some nice dolls in a short while.
What I found out in the meantime is that Congost got a license to produce Barbie dolls for the Spanish market in the late 1970s. Obviously they produced until the early 1990s. In the mid 1990s they can’t be found anymore. I assume that the capacity for production grew big enough in China in these years. It seems that there is/ was a problem with the quality. I saw some dolls with deformed arms and legs and missing hair. Barbie dolls in good condition from Congost seem to be hard to find. Why? No idea, I still investigate the problem.
Here’s a short video that shows some Congost Barbie dolls.I’m not sure if all are shown or not.
Here are some pics from my Congost Barbie dolls.
The skin tone is sometime a bit strange and the make up seems to disappear more often than from US version Barbie dolls. Here you can see what I mean in pics.