Bet you wish you’d held on to that Barbie.
During the run-up to the billion-dollar box office hit of the same name, the price of a vintage Barbie doll rose as demand soared. Former children everywhere were inspired to dig out forgotten treasures from their dusty hiding places, and there were some valuable finds among them.
Unfortunately, the average attic-dwelling Barbie doll is unlikely to get Margot Robbie looking jealously at your earning potential. Aside from an $85,000 De Beers-designed 40th Anniversary Barbie that was never even available in store, the most expensive vintage Barbies right now are worth less, on average, than when we last reported in 2021.
But there is still money to be made. There are plenty of three-figure figures in attics around America. Ghosts of childhoods’ past that could very well fund the Christmas gifts of the near future.
And now that Mattel has announced a slate of classic toy-themed movies — from Barney to the Magic 8 Ball — to fill the howling void left by Marvel’s implosion, even the unlikeliest of forgotten toys are likely to come back in rotation. Nineties kids are now in their late 20s to late 40s with disposable incomes (some of them!) and nostalgia habits to feed. So, TheToyZone can now present our updated and overhauled guide to the ‘90s toys that are now worth a fortune.
What We Did
TheToyZone researched well-known toy lines to discover the ‘90s models with the highest resale values. We used “sold” rather than “for sale” prices and focused on sales of specific models, ignoring bundle sales.
Key Findings
- A $21k Mario Kart cartridge for the N64 is the most expensive vintage Nintendo game to be sold.
- Logan Paul’s $6m Pikachu illustrator card is the most expensive ‘90s Pokémon card.
- The most expensive ‘90s Barbie is a De Beers 40th Anniversary doll that sold for $85,000.
- The most expensive ‘90s action figure sold for $10,000 — despite the character, Scratch The Cat, appearing only in the videogame of its parent franchise, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Mario Kart 64 is the Most Expensive Vintage Nintendo Game
Vintage Nintendo prices have gone to the next level. Quite aside from the Super Mario Bros. cartridge that went for $2 million shortly after our last study, we found that the top vintage games now commonly go for tens of thousands, rather than the four-figure sums of 2021.
Good copies of these games are becoming rarer as cartridges quit, disks rot and a new wave of collectors born from lockdown boredom snap them up. Games journalist Aaron Greenbaum further speculates that the artificial inflation of prices by an unscrupulous auctioneer may have added to the price rise — although prices were already on their way up.
Logan Paul’s Record-Breaking Pikachu Card
It’s a big year for pocket monsters, with the Pokémon Concierge stop-motion series on its way, a Detective Pikachu sequel announced, and a new app to get you catching the critters even in your sleep.
It’s also not so long since influencer Logan Paul spent a record $6 million (including the value of a swapsied card) on the world’s only PSA Grade 10 Pikachu Illustrator card — the highest graded instance of just 39 cards of this design that were given to winners of a Pokémon contest in 1998. He keeps it in “an $80k custom diamond pendant with a Pokéball bail.” While Paul’s card is at the pinnacle of the Pokémon trade, rare, limited-edition cards regularly command a five-figure sum.
Jewel-Encrusted Barbie Promises X-Generational Wealth
As we’ve discovered recently, Barbie transcends time — or at least moves with the times. The rare De Beers 40th Anniversary Barbie can partly thank the 160 diamonds in her belt for propelling her to the top of the table. But no ‘90s kid should be without a Millennium Bride Barbie in their collection, and time has inflated her resale value to as high as $500.
However, there are so many Barbie dolls out there that it’s best not to get your hopes up before getting a valuation. “People tend to be ambitious about what they think their doll is actually worth,” says Christopher Johnson, Barbie curator at Denver’s Turn of the Century Antiques Doll Shop.“ A really worthwhile Barbie is harder to come by than you think it is… You’ve got to have something really special to be asking a pretty penny.”
No-Frills Nintendo 64 is the Most Expensive of its Kind
Assorted game tie-in editions and color variations of Nintendo consoles make up most of the top ten most expensive electronic toys. Nearly 50 million SNES units were sold the first time around, so it takes something special to command a top price. The Nintendo 64 sold a relatively low 32.93 million units, which may explain why a pristine, no-frills N64 is the most expensive — along with its particular nostalgia value. “Rumor has it the air inside this box smells like 1996,” writes the owner of an unsold, sealed N64 on eBay for $250k.
However, one normcore N64 that doesn’t make the list is the Hyundai Comboy 64 — released in South Korea by the car company on Nintendo’s behalf for legal reasons but quickly discontinued when the law changed.
TMNT End-of-Level Baddie is the Most Valuable Action Figure
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were already something of a phenomenon before the 1990 movie — which nearly starred “Billy Crystal and Bobcat Goldthwait, wearing sort of green paint and shells and being the Turtle characters” — made them impossible to avoid. The Playmates-manufactured toys were famously well-made, and their instances account for seven of the ten most expensive action figures of the nineties.
The most expensive by a leap is a ’93 figure of Scratch the Cat, a character who only appeared in video games. He was considered so minor that only a few toys were made in his image, making them a rarity today.
Mattel Defeats Nerf and Super Soaker in Battle of the Vintage Blasters
The 1990s were the decade of killing your friends softly, with both Nerf blasters and Super Soakers making their debut in the period between Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and the original Toy Story. Super Soakers is the victor in the battle to gain the highest vintage value in general. Six of the top ten vintage blasters are Super Soaker, all from when they were manufactured by Larami, who made a billion dollars from the water guns before selling up to Hasbro in 1995.
The most expensive blaster of all, though, is Mattel’s take on the Nerf: an Ultimator Bazooka Rocket Blaster, which sold for $699.99. It commanded that price partly for including its two original Ballista Missiles. Since the rockets had a firing range of 120 feet, way beyond most suburban garden perimeters, finding an Ultimator that didn’t lose its missiles is rare.
View Master the Movie
Mattel has not yet announced an Ultimator Bazooka Rocket Blaster movie series among their slate of Polly Pocket and View Master movies. Still, the ‘90s were a golden age for toys, and we’re now in a golden age for ’90s nostalgia — and the most unlikely grunge-age attic discovery now has the potential to make big bucks at the box office or on eBay.
But remember, no accessory is too small to treasure — or to become treasure. “What started out as an affordable hobby has grown too expensive to maintain,” says one former doll collector. “I’ve largely stopped collecting dolls themselves and invest in clothing and accessories instead.” Maybe those random Nerf missiles at the bottom of the trunk are gaining value?
METHODOLOGY & SOURCES
For this analysis, we researched well-known toy lines to discover the ‘90s models with the highest resale values. We used “sold” rather than “for sale” prices and focused on sales of specific models, ignoring bundle sales. The data is correct as of January 2024.
Sources used:
- For Nintendo games, we used the “graded price” of different games on PriceCharting.com.
- For Pokémon cards, we used the most recent sale prices for the rarest ‘90s cards (as sourced from PriceCharting.com).
- For Barbie, we considered only the highest-value Barbie models as sourced from BarbieDB.com.
- For electronic toys, we used the “graded price” of different toys as sourced from PriceCharting.com and Mavin.io.
- For action figures and playsets, we used the “sold” prices as sourced from WheelJacksLab.com and Mavin.io.
- For blasters, we used the “sold” prices as sourced from Mavin.io.
