Barbie
Buy and sell Barbie dolls in Guatemala.
Barbie comes with a whole household: Ken, the sisters, a horse, a camper that opens out into a campsite and a doll for nearly every job. All of it turns up here new and pre-owned, from a Color Reveal tube nobody has opened to a Ken who spent years at the bottom of a toy box. In Guatemala the boxes pile up around Día del Niño and again at Christmas, so a doll that arrived as a duplicate gift is often listed a few weeks later still in its plastic. The line name on the box tells you what you are getting before you message the seller.
Which Barbie a child actually plays with:
depends on what she likes doing with a doll. Color Reveal dolls come in a tube, all one flat colour until water washes the coating off, so most of the fun is the unboxing and an opened one is simply a Barbie. Barbie Extra is about hair and accessories, with a pet and a pile of tiny pieces that should stay well away from a toddler. Career dolls, the vet or the astronaut, come with the props of the job. Signature dolls, holiday gowns and Día de Muertos editions among them, are made for adults who keep them boxed. A girl who wants removable feet and heavy make-up is after Bratz, and a Cinderella or an Elsa sits with the Disney princess dolls.
Ken is the doll most collections are missing:
plenty of homes have a drawer of Barbies and no Ken at all. He takes his own clothes and shoes, since nothing from Barbie’s wardrobe fits him. Among the playsets the Dream Camper is the one families choose when there is no room for a house. It opens into a kitchen, a lounge and a rooftop tent, then closes back into something that fits on a shelf. Barbie’s horses, with long manes to brush, are the other set children ask for by name.
What a Dream Camper and a used Ken go for in quetzales:
Barbie’s larger playsets, the camper among them, cost upwards of Q1,000 new, so a used camper that still has its tent, its grill and its small pieces deserves a proper asking price, while one that has lost them is a big pink box on wheels. In mixed lots of used dolls a Ken often fetches close to twice what each Barbie does, simply because there are fewer of him about. A Signature doll works the other way round from a play doll: boxed and untouched it is priced as a collectable, and once it has been taken out and played with it is worth no more than any other Barbie in a nice dress.
A used Barbie shows how she was played with:
once you look past the outfit. Biro and marker sink into the vinyl and stay there, whatever the seller says about cleaning sponges, so ask for close photos of the face and legs. A head that has been pulled off and pushed back on many times sits loose and nods forward. On a camper, open and close it and look hard at the hinges and the clips that hold it shut: pink plastic that has gone whitish around a hinge is about to crack. Boxed collector dolls get opened and closed again. Ask for photos of every side of the box. A slit along the window, tape laid over tape, or a doll sitting crooked against her backing card all mean someone has had her out.
Listing a Barbie before Día del Niño or before Christmas:
puts her in front of parents in the weeks they are actually shopping, which is when duplicate gifts and outgrown collections move fastest. Name the line, Extra, Color Reveal, Signature or the career, because that is what buyers type. Say whether a Ken comes with his own shoes, and list him on his own rather than letting him vanish into a lot priced by the doll. A camper needs its folded size and a word on whether every clip still holds, because the buyer coming in from Chimaltenango may be carrying it home on their knees on a chicken bus.