Prototype Barbie Doll

Rare Prototype Swirl Barbie Bendleg in Box/ Orig. Owner

ended - Friday, February 8, 2008

Auction grade: C-

Starting bid: $95.99

Final sale price: $585.00


Up for sale in this auction is a rare prototype Barbie doll with bendable legs. The seller claims that the legs can be clicked and positioned in three different legs. The seller also goes on to mention how she received the doll out of the box, but she restored the doll to a like-new condition.

I need to point out that the seller is lying to the customers in the title. The title says "Orig. Owner", but in the main body of the text it says that she's the second owner. When you say that you're the original owner, it implies that you were the person who received the item directly from the store or factory. In this case, this seller specifically says that she received the doll from a seller who in turn bought it from a store. Therefore, she is at least the second owner (assuming that the store didn't sell a returned item). Plus, she uses the wrong version of "its".

"I got this Barbie from it's original owner. She came to me out of box. The seller told me she got her as a gift in the American Girl box and that she came that way from the store."


I do like how the main body text is written in that pink and white color combination. Those colors are perfect for selling a feminist item like this one.

The way the main text is written is where I have more problems. Despite being full of sentence fragments, the overall flow of the message just doesn't seem to work that well. I can't quite place my finger on what exactly bothers me (besides the grammar errors), but something is there. I don't know if this is good or bad for an auction like this, but you can definitely tell that a woman wrote the text. Most of the time you want your text and wording to look gender-equal.

A big plus for this seller are all of the pictures of this Barbie doll. Some of them are better than others, but there are plenty of angles of the doll and accompanying box. The pictures allow you to get a true feeling for the item before making a winning bid.


Overall, I don't like this auction. Between the seller lying to the customers in the title to the style of text in the auction itself, this is not that good of an auction. The only reason I didn't go for a lower grade was that the seller A) had a good color combination with the text, and B) used lots of pictures. One of my rules is that you can never have too many pictures, especially when selling a vintage item like this one.