Remember Kelly Dolls?

Do you remember the Kelly dolls by Mattel? They are 5 inch tall dolls in their own little plastic and cardboard boxes, Barbie’s little sister. The boxes are as colorful as the dolls. Twenty-some years ago, on my weekly run to Target with a toddler in tow, I would check out the Kelly dolls and buy the ones that went on clearance. In those days, I dreamed of having a doll store. We’re talking the late 90s.

Here I am twenty-some years later, and I have boxes and suitcases filled with Kelly dolls, new in the box, in mint condition. I decided to give them to my neighbor in my beach town, since she knows a charitable group looking for Christmas gifts for the farm workers’ children.

I called and left a message, then decided I should check on ebay to make sure I’m not sitting on a gold mine. I was stunned to discover thousands of listings for Kelly dolls, some new in box, some played with. I scrolled and scrolled, then jumped forward to see when the listings, sixty per page, would stop. I gave up at 120 pages. That’s over 7000 listings for Kelly dolls.

95 per cent of them are white dolls. I put Kelly dolls of color in the ebay search box and got a bunch of white dolls with Crayola outfits on, so that they look like crayons. A black doll here and there, no Asian dolls, no Latina dolls. Many of the dolls offered are from the 2000s.

No gold mine here. They’ve gone the way of Beanie Babies. So many people collected them that they are virtually worth about $5.00 each, just about what I paid for them.

I don’t want to sell on ebay. I don’t want to mess around with selling individual dolls. I am going to find them all, put them in a big box and give them to my neighbor to donate for Christmas gifts.

It has taken me decades to accumulate all this stuff. What they don’t tell you is that your super energized drive and motivation in your early forties is not there in your late sixties. Time is too important to spend it on trying to recoup a bad investment.

Girls don’t even play with dolls anymore. They are too busy playing on their cell phones. Maybe the girls with no electronics will still appreciate a cute doll in a cute package, even though most of the dolls are blondes.

I loved dolls as a child. The doll stores have all gone out of business. Dolls are now creepy props in horror movies. And speaking of the election . . .

Well, the horror remains to be seen. Instead of watching the news I think I will play with my box of childhood dolls that have been out of the box for more than fifty-five years.