The Barbie Doll is a Toy For the Ages

If Cleopatra, who could command almost anything in existence, had been able to purchase a Barbie doll there is little doubt she would have been genuinely delighted with the toy. Barbie, who was born, so to speak, on March 9, 1959, has always made hearts beat a little faster and wallets open a little more quickly. This small piece of molded plastic, which is eleven and one half inches long, could possibly be the world's most beloved. For young and old alike, Barbie represents an enormous amount of personal and public sentiment.Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie dolls, estimates that there are as many as 100,000 very enthusiastic collectors, and that almost half of them spend as much as $1,000.00 per year on Barbie-related items. Without a doubt, Cleopatra, the Queen of the Nile, would feel right at home with these Barbie admirers.Indeed, her startling rush to toy stardom is a large part of the reason she is held in such high esteem by her admirers. In no small way, Barbie's history itself is responsible for the thrill her fans feel when they finally possess a Barbie doll of their very own.Ruth Handler, wife of Eliot Handler, a co-founder of the American toy company Mattel, discovered the prototype of Barbie during a vacation in Germany. Handler returned to America with a German version of the toy and suggested to her husband that a re-engineered product would be a successful addition to the toys available to children at the time. After much frowning and hesitation on the part of the men responsible for deciding which toys would be made available to the public, it was decided to release Barbie for the then fairly large sum of $3.00.Today, of course, the availability of the female-shaped toy, and the sheer variety of Barbie dolls available to her fans around the world, is literally enormous. Barbie dolls are manufactured in almost every ethnic variety and cultural fashion, and the number of her accessories, including a Rolls Royce automobile and a laundry list of play homes and condos that reflect the iconic architectural styles of their locations.Given the plethora of Barbie dolls and friends offered to her eager fans in the present day, it is a genuine pity that Cleopatra, the queen who couldn't have a Barbie doll, is not alive and to set her heart on glad by acquiring the collector edition Princess Of The Nile Barbie.