Pawn Stars Toy Expert Says Barbie Dolls Skyrocketing In Price

Given the movie is based on Mattel's iconic toy line, it's no coincidence that the big-screen smash "Barbie" is helping drive up prices of the iconic doll in the secondary marketplace to unprecedented levels.

The interesting thing is, the prices for vintage Barbie dolls began to rise dramatically just over two weeks before director Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" hit $1 billion at the worldwide box office. In a pair of video interviews with TMZ a day after the film opened on July 21, 2023, Joel Magee — an appraiser also known as "The Toy Scout," who has frequently appeared on the hit history series "Pawn Stars" — said prices were already going through the roof.

"It's interesting. I've been doing this for 30 years and the interest in Barbie has just skyrocketed in the last few weeks," Magee told TMZ on July 22.

According to TMZ, the first edition of the doll that was released in 1959 by Mattel is selling anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000. The doll is easily identifiable by its blonde hair and black and white striped bathing suit, which is the same outfit Margot Robbie's Barbie wore in the movie's opening scene.

Magee is not surprised by Barbie's big comeback, telling TMZ, "Now that we have Barbie brought to the spotlight again, all of a sudden people are dusting off all their dolls and such that have maybe sat in the closet for all those years and saying, 'Hey! She's back!'"

Naturally, much of the interest in Barbie lies in the older versions of the doll, which were created in 1959 by legendary Mattel President Ruth Handler. The inventor's massive, pop culture contribution was not lost on Greta Gerwig, as the filmmaker cast Rhea Pearlman in a vital and poignant cameo as Handler.

Reflecting on the staying power of the Barbie doll more than six decades after Handler's invention, Magee told TMZ, "It's amazing. This is all stuff from our childhood. But with Barbie, it started in 1959, but here are in 2023 and she's just as popular as she ever was."

Magee said part of the reason for the craze stems from the public's need to bask in the warmth of childhood nostalgia to help escape the cold, hard realities of day-to-day life. "It's all about making and creating new childhood memories [and] bringing our past childhood memories to today," Magee told TMZ. "Really, we need a break from all this gloom and doom, and Barbie is just the ticket for it."

The prices toy sellers are getting for Barbie dolls released in 1959 are varied, since a number of factors go into how much buyers will pay for them. That includes the condition of the doll, whether it comes with its original packaging and accessories, and if there were any variant issues of the doll, such as brunette hair instead of blonde. As such, a search of recent eBay sales found bidders paying up to $10,000 for different versions of the 1959 Barbie.

To put the rise in today's cost of a 1959 Barbie #1 into perspective, a seller named Kim on the 2017 "Pawn Stars" episode "Mini Miles" sold his original version of the doll to Rick Harrison for $5,500 after coming down from his original asking price of $10,000. Kim's doll not only included the original box, but nearly all of its original accessories, apart from a reproduction of its stand. Making Kim's doll even more unique was that the box was said to be signed by Ruth Handler. 

While Steve Johnston, the toy appraiser Harrison called in to estimate the value of Kim's Barbie #1 couldn't authenticate the autograph, he noted how he had previously seen in-person signatures by Handler. Ultimately, Johnston said Handler's autograph looked consistent with previous examples he's seen of the business legend's signature, making the doll Kim sold to "Pawn Stars" exceptionally rare.