Mystery Christie and Other Rare Finds

 When I was about 12 years old, in the mid-1980s, my dad got into refinishing furniture. He bought a bunch of curio cabinets from a salvage place. The cabinets had been in a flood but he was able to strip them and refinish them so they looked like new. He gave one to each of us girls and told us we would start collecting something to put in our cabinets.

My mother, who grew up too poor for things like cabinets full of collector dolls, immediately suggested I collect dolls. She always wanted a doll cabinet when she was little. She got me a subscription to Doll Reader magazine and I would read it and try to learn all  about the different dolls and their values. People could list their dolls for sale in the back pages of the magazine and before the Internet pretty much any old doll was worth a fortune. Old Barbies were thousands of dollars, as were Cissy dolls and other old Madame Alexanders. Even newer collector dolls were valuable. 

Then the Internet and eBay happened and it turns out a lot of “rare” dolls aren’t rare at all. Values plummeted and really hurt anyone hoping to make money on their doll collection. Thankfully I was a kid so I didn’t spend too much on my dolls but lots of adults really took a hit. If you read this blog at all you know my first rule of collecting is to never buy things made as collectibles. Holiday and “Special Edition” Barbies and other dolls, porcelain subscription dolls, dolls sold in magazine ads… they almost always lose value. The reason is, everyone buys them as an investment and they never get played with and there are just too many produced. What you want to look for are play dolls that are really popular or unusual or capture the zeitgeist of the time period. Put them away and don’t open the boxes and just keep them. You can do the same thing with Lego sets. Recently I read an article about how Lego sets have beaten the S&P 500 for the past 8 years in a row! 

I did this inadvertently as a kid. Most of my dolls were the little 8 inch Madame Alexander dolls. They’re not worth a thing now. I had a friend who had a whole linen closet full of them (she was the only child of rich parents and had an entire floor in their house to herself) and she was never allowed to take them out of the boxes, only open the lids and look at them sometimes. And now they’re hardly worth the price to ship them! It’s a shame because those cost about $80 each in the 1980s so our parents shelled out big bucks for them! I got Barbie from the Barbie and the Rockers line for Christmas when I was 11. I was just a bit too big for dolls but my sisters got the other band members and we got the stage and everything that year so I was tempted to open the box. It came with a cassette tape and I kind of wanted to listen to it too. I went back and forth but eventually we just dressed a different Barbie (of which we had like a million) in Rockers clothes and played with her and I put my doll in her box in my doll cabinet. And I still have her, never opened. The value is creeping up and she will only get more expensive and rare as the years go by. Most people played with these dolls so they’re hard to find without damage. They’re just so typical of the 80s, too. I have a lot of nostalgia for that time like most people my age, and nostalgia sells, especially when times are hard.

Nowadays I know how to tell if a doll is rare or not: just search online! If it’s not for sale anywhere, or not pictured anywhere that’s a really rare doll. Right now I have a bunch of these “mystery” dolls but one really sucked me into the rabbit hole trying to identify her. 

The Spain Face Mold

This is a black Christie or Barbie doll with the Spain face mold from the 1980s. The reason I wanted to know exactly who she was is because certain of these dolls are worth $400-$500! Christie was Barbie’s friend. Christie and Julia debuted in the 1960s and used the Julia face sculpted after Diahann Carroll. These were the first dolls in the Barbie family with African American features.

It wasn’t until 1980 that Mattel produced Barbie as a black doll and not one of her friends. The fist black Barbies mostly used the Steffie and Superstar face molds, but just a couple used the Spain face mold. It was the same with Christie. It’s really hard to tell Christie from Black Barbie if her clothes are missing and that’s the situation here. After way too many hours of research I can assure you this is an extremely rare doll!

At first I thought this was Sunsational Malibu Christie. She has straight arms and unpierced ears and the hair is the right length. However, this doll has a line of blue eyeshadow and Christie’s eyeshadow is shades of peach. I wondered if this could be Dee Dee from Barbie and The Rockers. The answer is no because Dee Dee has bent arms with a pierced had for a ring and dramatic eyeshadow. Finally I found Fun Times Barbie, who came with a watch for her human very similar to the uber-popular-at-the-time Swatch watches.

Fun Time Barbie has the same eyeshadow as this doll. Her hair looks wavier though and her ears are pierced and she came with huge earrings, also very popular at the time. This doll had only one pierced ear when I got her, obviously not factory-pierced. She must be either Sunsational Malibu Christie with an unusual eyeshadow variation or Fun Times Barbie who somehow came without pierced ears. I don’t see how that’s possible though because the giant earrings are such a big part of that doll’s outfit.

I finally admitted defeat. I don’t know who this is and further searching will just depress my profit margin because I spent way to much time restoring her and researching her. I decided to name her “Mystery Christie”. I decided to pierce her other ear and give her earrings so now she’s a one-of-a-kind doll anyway!

Mystery Christie had a broken neck and matted hair when she arrived. You can watch my restoration videos here and here. She has some other issues, like scratched arms and breasts, green spots on her legs from the metal knee joints inside, and to add insult to injury someone ate her feet! I gave her the Best Buy Fashions #C332G pink dress (also extremely rare) which covers most of her flaws. I added shoes from the Little Extras fashion pack #9121. One pair is closed toe to hide her chewed feet. 

Now that she’s all cleaned up and dressed Christie displays beautifully. Her outfit covers most of her flaws. She’s ready to grace any Barbie collection! You can get her here.

Here’s another mystery Barbie. She has articulated arms with joints at the wrist and elbow and she has pink shoes molded to her feet. She also has white earrings molded to her ears. She’s marked 2009. I can only find one other doll like this online anywhere. That’s rare! If anyone knows who this is please let me know in the comments.

Then there’s this cute Kewpie-type baby doll. It’s only 3 inches tall, hard plastic with a vinyl head. The body shape is funny; very pear-shaped. There are no markings anywhere. Image search says this is Sonny Angel but it’s not. For one thing it doesn’t have wings. It has a very Asian cartoon look to me but I don’t recognize it. If you do please let me know!

These three dolls (and SO many more) are available from the shop page of mandaline.com.