Vintage Barbie Doll Houses were hard to find during the 1980’s when collectors had to comb estate auctions, yard sales, thrift stores, flee markets and their neighbor’s basements for these time-worn treasures. Often, it took years to find enough of the right parts to call your vintage Barbie Doll house complete.
Times changed during the 1990’s as antique malls started leasing small spaces to community members who wanted to sell “antique” unwanted objects. In the antique malls, dealers would price and sell any items that might have a collectible value despite its age. People searching for vintage Barbie Doll houses could often find more than set of housing parts or pieces under the same roof.
Pricing on vintage Barbie Doll houses was done by desirability during the early years of collecting. Whatever the market would pay is what you got out of your Barbie Doll house. I remember standing at a farm auction watching two mothers bid into the 200.00 range for an early 1970’s Barbie Doll House for their daughters. The house was not worth this much to me, but it was worth that much to these two nostalgic mothers.
I was not a vintage Barbie Doll House collector in those early days, I was a vintage Barbie Doll House dealer; I owned one of those antique malls who leased space by the square foot to small volume vendors. I would shop for “as is” vintage Barbie Doll Houses, renovate the house, and then put gutsy price tags on the refurbished treasure.
Prices for vintage Barbie Doll houses were in their high between 1992 and the century change. During this period, Americans were busy decorating with 1960-79 collectibles. You would see 1960’s and 1970’s collectibles in the backgrounds of then current advertising, television shows, and movies. Pricing on these collectibles went up as ages 20-25 bought “antique” toys from their parent’s childhood to decorate with.
Online eBay regulated the soaring prices for vintage Barbie Doll houses, and all other common collectibles, as people began to log onto the internet. eBay allowed for the antiques and collectibles market to be flooded with items that acted to quash previous price values in the field.
Items like vintage Barbie Doll houses, that people believed to be rare, hard-to-get, or valuable during the 1990’s were suddenly available by the truck loads as everybody in America cleaned out their basements to sell online. When there are many of the same items for sale, a buyer does not have to pay much to own one of the items.
Buying Today: Shopping for vintage Barbie Doll houses is easy to do today. You have all of the old options of searching through thrift stores, estate auctions, yard sales, and antique stores, plus the added easy option of simply shopping quickly online at eBay or another online auction site.
How to Buy: For each vintage Barbie Doll house-shell that you need, plan to buy two houses. The second house will give you the spare parts that you need to work with. The term vintage Barbie Doll “house-shell” is used in some circles to describe a vintage Barbie Doll house that comes without all detachable or small play pieces.
If you plan to buy a vintage Barbie Doll house to restore from eBay, you need to understand the turf. Offline Barbie Doll collectors and dealers check eBay daily; they sit super-glued to all extra desirable deals going to auction. On eBay, do not get into a bidding war with a collector or dealer; you will pay to lose. A nasty trick is to bid the price up high so that you pay too much for the item that they wanted.
To shop for a vintage Barbie Doll house on eBay, take two-weeks to read ads daily without making a bid. This will allow you to see current prices, what doesn’t sell, what is common, and what might be rare; at the end of two weeks, you will know what to shop for in a vintage Barbie Doll house, and when to make bids.
1962 Barbie Cardboard Dream House: As far as I am concerned, this is the most desirable vintage Barbie Doll house on the market. Barbie and Ken are 1959 creations; this 1962 cardboard house is one of the first offered by Mattel for them to shack-up in. Barbie and Ken were never married. The word to note about this house is, “cardboard”.
Because of its cardboard construction, the 1962 Dream House is rarer than most of the other vintage Barbie Doll houses. Children could destroy the cardboard vintage Barbie Doll house during normal playtime without realizing that what they were doing. When children stood on the heavy cardboard boxes, it left crunches, or tiny corner rips. Crayons, tape, accidental gouging, and fading also affect the products market price.
Recently on eBay, a 1962 Cardboard Dream House that was purchased new, and put away after a short time of gentle play as a collectible in the 1960’s went for about 100.00 (including shipping.) This house came with: a couch, coffee table, lamp, chair, ottoman, bed, chair, mirror, television/stereo, picture of Ken, 2 state school pennants, 6 clothing hangers, 2 sets of books, 5 pillows and 6 records. (Nat King Cole, Kingston Trio, The Letterman, Sinatra, Vic Damon, The Four Preps on Campus.)
The 100.00 vintage Barbie Doll house noted above is a rarity. The same vintage Barbie Doll house was running by another dealer at the same time for 20.00, and included one more chair, a picture frame, mini fashion magazines, a mirror, and 3 vintage dolls. Nobody was bidding on this house because it had been played with. This marks your price ranges for the desirable vintage Barbie Doll1962 Cardboard Dream House. You can buy them between 1.00 plus shipping, and 100.00 including shipping online.
When you find a 1962 vintage Barbie Doll house online that you would like to bid on, email the seller and ask her to describe all rips, dents, bent pieces, fading, and crayon marks on the piece. Ask for extra photographs if something isn’t making complete sense to you. Your goal is to try to find the best cardboard-shell for the cheapest price. The furnishings are easy to find in separate auctions.
This 1962 Barbie Dream House is mostly blue, marked and dated by Mattel, and folds-up into a size 8″ x 26″ x 14″ carrying box with a handle on top. When looking at this folded up house before buying, turn it upside-down to check for gouging and scuffs from dragging. The hardest piece of furniture that I ever had to find for this house, for a collecting customer, was the tube-shaped lamp that can be set on the floor beside the couch to look like an ashtray.
Cleaning Hints: About cleaning for the 1962 Cardboard Barbie Dream House, do not grab the Windex and start squirting or you will leave water stains everywhere that the liquid can seep between the cardboard layers. Instead, use the method that old-timers used to clean their wallpaper.
Take a few pieces of your cheap white “squish” bread out of the bread bag, remove the crusts, and squish hard until the bread forms a tight ball in your hand. Roll this ball over your cardboard (or other paper goods) and let the bread pick-up the years of filth and debris. When you are done wiping your house down with your bread ball, shop-vac all of the little nooks and crannies to make sure that all small crumbs are out.
Other Houses: Many people seem to gravitate towards the vintage Barbie Doll house called, 1968 Barbie Family House. This is a vinyl house that was made with the shocking colors and patterns popular in 1968. This house measures about 14″ x 12″ x 12″ when it was folded up to carry. Good examples of these houses cost fewer than 30.00 on eBay.
By the 1970’s the Barbie Doll houses were being made out of screw-together hard plastic, and evolved to include elevators, spa’s, lights, and other luxury’s that I don’t consider to be from the true vintage Barbie era in the 1960’s of her first 10-years of life. Vintage Barbie Doll houses are my choice to consider for investment today because of price, availability, and the fact that many Barbie Doll collectors are overlooking them as a collectible because of their size.
Retailers: You can find vintage Barbie Doll houses on eBay. Click here to view these options. You can also sometimes find vintage Barbie Doll houses from people selling online without eBay involved like Lea’s Barbie at a non-eBay auction site. (Click here to view these options.)
