First Post - Placeholder Post

My favorite titian hair Ponytail Barbie doll

Hello!  I am Nessa and I am a vintage Barbie doll collector.

I've been collecting vintage Barbie since I was 11 years old.. which let's just say was some time in the 1990s, before the huge "Barbie Doll Boom And Bust of the Late-90s / Early 2000s."

Back in the early 90s, it was so easy to find and talk to other collectors about vintage Barbie.  I frequently attended doll shows, and even Barbie-Only doll shows.. and there were several Barbie-Only magazines on the market.  These magazines were so helpful to me as a beginner collector.  (Specifically, the long and sadly defunct Barbie Bazaar & Miller's).  I loved reading interesting articles about Barbie and eagerly awaited the magazines each month.  I learned so much from fellow expert and long time collectors, and it was extra special to see those rare things you never got to see in person.

You might think that with the rise of the internet, it is easier than ever to connect with other collectors.  But it's really not that way!  The hobby is disconnected.  We don't get together to shop anymore, because there's eBay.  We don't have a magazine, because everything's on the internet.  We don't get together to chat, because the clubs are all defunct.  We don't get a sales list from our friends in the mail because everything's online.

Gone are the conventions and doll shows where I could meet other collectors.  Gone is the local doll club.  Gone are the magazines with the beautiful glossy pages, the long-form informative articles, the books, the reference guides, the giant hotel ballrooms filled with vintage Barbie to the ceilings.

For me, there's a huge hole left to collectors.  Nothing came to fill the gap left by those shows, magazines, and that important exchange of information.  I kept expecting it to show up, but it just hasn't.  And I'm tired of waiting.  You would think that the internet, the holder of all information ever, would have something out there for a serious Barbie collector.  But nothing has ever appeared that is nice as those magazines used to be.

My goal with starting this blog is to bring back some of the long-form writing about Vintage Barbie that I miss so much, and hopefully connect some other collectors (and maybe new collectors) out there with this hobby.

I am far from an expert collector.  My collection pales in comparison to many.  But I would like to share what I can... we'll see where it goes.  I am very open to other contributors to this blog or answering or discussing questions or mysteries.  However I would ask let's please not have any general doll ID questions, there are plenty of identification websites, many linked in the sidebar of this blog.