Thirty Years of Mattel Fashion Dolls

In the mail today, I received my new out-of-print 

doll reference book. 

Thirty Years of Mattel Fashion Dolls 

Identification and Value Guide 

1967-1997 

by J. Michael Augustyniak

Collector Books 

1998 

I learned about this book a month ago when I was reseaching

my Sunshine Family Dolls.  This book was mentioned on one of 

the sites I found that it had a great section on the Sunshine Family.

(A big THANK YOU for posting about this book) 

Forgot about it until my good friend at work called me last week and told 

me about a book she wanted to get for school.  She is very leery

about buying anything on the Internet since her information was stolen.

I told her I would buy it at Amazon but she had to wait until I found 

some dolls books I wanted to buy in order to receive free shipping. 

She told me no problem. Remembered the Mattel book and ordered 

"Barbie A Rare Beauty".  The Mattel Book wasn't under the free shipping

since it was from an outside seller.  But I didn't care since it wasn't that 

expensive with the 4.00 shipping. 

This is a great book.  Learned a lot that I didn't know. 

There is a wonderful section on the Sunshine Family. 

The dolls were going to be named "The Good Earth Family".

Also had some photos how the designer first thought how they should look. 

Found some dolls that Mattel used the Barbie Body for. 

An example is a doll called "Fashion Friends".  They were 

3 dolls made exclusively for K-Mart in 1991 that used the Barbie 

and Skipper bodies. 

There's a great section of the "Shani" line of dolls and the "Heart Family"

The book is filled with pictures of dolls, clothes and playsets Mattel 

has produced in those 30 years. 

My favorite page spread is "The Barbie Doll Family Tree"

Head shots of all the face molds.  

And for those collectors who collect Disney dolls. There 

is an 80 page section on dolls that Mattel produced for Disney. 

All in all, it's a wonderful reference book to have! So glad I bought it!