Customer Reviews

Collector's Guide to 1990s Barbie Dolls: Identification & Values

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Ok, Let's get the negatives out of the way:
1. This book is seriously incomplete. No Skipper, No Kelly, No Ken.
2. Does not cover the 1990's decade. Only covers 1989 to part of 1997.
3. The only description provided is year, name, Item # and an inflated price guide value

BUT
The reason you buy this book is for the pictures. This is THE best book for identifying Pink Box Barbies from 1989 to 1997. She provides two pictures for every doll, a full length picture from straight out of the box and a close-up of the face. And when you have a nude barbie found on the 50 cent table at a garage sale, the face is all you have to identify it. This is a valuable resource for Barbie resellers as an identification tool, but you may as well ignore the over-inflated price value. These are Pink Box Barbies, not Exclusives.

The author of this book gives us exactly what she claims to offer. Concise illustrations of the regular "pink box" Barbie dolls of the 1990's. There are other wonderful books featuring the older Barbie dolls but the regular dolls from the 1990's are frequently left out. The full body and close up shots have been helpful in identifying my recent thrift store finds. The author provides us with issue dates and stock numbers and approximate values at date of publication. The specific head and body markings are unfortunately not included.

Maria Mmartinez-Esguerra has written a book about Barbie in the 1990's and that is fine for those who began collecting in that decade. However, to really learn about Barbie and her history, I don't see the purpose of this book. A reference for one decade will be lacking because Barbie was born in 1959. That is a lot of history and the years between have told the story much better than this book.

If your looking for a book that would have Barbie, Skipper, ken, stacey, Kelly and friends. This is not the book you want.
It doesn't even have all the 1990's barbie dolls, it is only from 1980 to 1997. It Only has Barbie, Friends and no family.

A very anticipated book because this was the decade I predominantly collected Barbies. However it fails to showcase many of the special edition Barbie Dolls and International Barbie Dolls produced at certain times of that period. Quite a small book and would of preferred pictures to be bigger and more information about the Barbie itself.