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Friday, July 28, 2023

Under the cabbage leaf: the most valuable Cabbage Patch Kids

In a similar vein to the Barbie list I found a few weeks back, here's a list regarding the most expensive Cabbage Patch Kids found.  Every so often I get bitten by the Cabbage Patch Kid bug, and I trot out my small Patch and hunt for clothes for them.  My bunch hasn't grown any since y'all saw them last.
From left, they are Stella Rae, Valencia "Val" Rose, Poppy Elizabeth, Andrea Doria, and Taniyah Yasmin.  Their posts can be found HERE and HERE, and because I'm doing this post on the fly all pictures here will be reused ones.  Sorry about that.  Anyway, the list had thirteen entries with one tie and one entry consisting of twin dolls.  Some of the dolls pre-date the Cabbage Patch years and are called "Little People" instead, and a few were soft-sculpture Cabbies from before the Coleco years.  To my surprise, none of the dolls were Tri-Ang gaudy yellows or fuzzy reds, two of the ones on my wish list.  There were two popcorns, however, and oh my, do I love a popcorn Cabbie!  My soft doll, Poppy Elizabeth, was advertised as a popcorn, but she's got tight Shirley Temple-style curls, not real popcorn locks.
No hate meant to Poppy, of course!  She's a soft-sculpture Kid, and not everyone has one of those so I won't complain.  Five of the thirteen entries on the list were soft-sculpture kids.

Interestingly, I do have one doll that might be considered a bit more desirable than others.  That one would be Valencia Rose, better known in Casa del Luna as "Val."
Val is a redhead, and according to the list redheads are more desirable than blondes or brunettes.  Indeed, seven of the thirteen entries on the list feature redheads, and maaaaaaaybe Entry #8 is a redhead too.  It's kinda hard to tell in the picture.  Val doesn't have the flaming red hair that the listed examples do, but she IS a redhead.  Taniyah Yasmin might be considered valuable too one day, but right now she's a hair too modern.
Again according to the list, Cabbies with darker skin tend to be more sought-after.  That may mean that in time, after Taniyah has spent a decade or two in the clippings pile, she too might go for a bit more than what I bought her.

And maybe she won't!  None of my Cabbies will go for much because they lack papers, original packaging, and in a few cases their original outfits, and none of them have artist signatures.  But that matters naught to me, as I have no intention of selling them.  As I've said in the past, I buy my dolls to play with, to love, and to admire, not to make a buck on the resale market.  And for the record, none of my dolls have faces covered in crayon! 

Okay, story time, one that does indeed deal with a Cabbie and crayons.  If y'all can believe this, a lady came into the library one time with a bedraggled old Cabbage Patch Kid.  The doll WAS vintage and her body appeared to be in good shape, but her clothes were gone and some little brat had drawn all over her face with red crayon.  I don't mean a few teeny-weeny, easily-scraped-off lines, either.  The whole face had been scribbled on...but the woman still thought her doll had the potential to be worth four thousand bucks.  Yeah, you read me right:  four with three zeros for a doll with a crayoned face and no clothes!  The woman already had a reputation for being extremely dense, and she'd been suckered by one of those clickbait ads that lists ordinary items for ridiculous amounts of money.  After looking up the deceitful ad again she thrust the poor doll at me and practically yelled "DON'T SHE LOOK LIKE THAT ONE IN THE PICTURE???"  The victimized doll DID look like the picture in the ad, but...yeah.  I wish I had a picture of the woman's face when I told her her decrepit old doll wouldn't be worth a plug nickel in the shape she was in.  Of course I was promptly told I didn't know what I was talking about, and then (thank God) the woman never came back.  This woman had a reputation for being rude as well as dense, so we weren't too sorry to see her go.  But seriously, even the priciest entry on the list didn't reach four thousand bucks, and there were TWO dolls in that listing!  The dolly world has its squirrels just like every other hobby does.

Stay cool (seriously, it's HOT outside),
RagingMoon1987

10 comments:

  1. Oh man! I have run into so many people like your lady! Try to explain that just because your Barbie's butt says 1966, that doesn't mean that's when she was made. Or that your Barbie with gouge holes all over her face isn't worth squat, because, well, GOUGE HOLES! They will just stand and argue with you and not back down on that outrageous price. Try to explain that condition matters, or that somebody actually has to WANT the thing, or that just because somebody is asking a million dollars on Ebay, that doesn't mean they're GETTING it.
    I bought Unsentimental Niece a Cabbage Patch at the very beginning. Luckily it was in lay away before everything started. It was a redhead. We had similar taste in toys back then. But she would have rather have had a bald one, which would have been my second choice!

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    1. Oh yes, I've run into folks that thought they had a really old Barbie because her rear said 1966. I usually countered that one with "Yeah, I've got a whole box of 'em at home and people won't buy. LOL, it actually worked a couple'a times. Did your niece give her Cabbie a nickname?

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    2. I don't remember what she called her. I'm sure it was colourful!

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    3. LOL, I love your Unsentimental Niece stories. Like I said a few days ago, she sounds a lot like my sarcastic (but riotously funny) sister.

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  2. I like the cute chubby faces these dolls have, but I don't own any. Hey, I think the saying is "an item is only worth what people are prepared to pay for it". But I agree some people ask ridiculous prices for dolls, well ridiculous in my eyes, but then there are those who will happily pay what's asked (more fool them I say). Thank God we are all sensible around here. LOL!
    Big hugs,
    X

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    1. Well, I led you to seek out your first Barbie doll. Maybe now you'll want your own Cabbage Patch Kid too. Word of warning: Cabbies are like potato chips and the Mafia rolled into one. You can't have just one, and once you're in there's no getting out.

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    2. Yes you did, but I will probably never own her, she's way way way above my dolly budget. 🤣

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    3. You never know when something might crop up!

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  3. Maybe if the lady you mentioned went to the trouble of taking a Magic Eraser brand cleaning sponge and painstakingly removing the crayon scribbles, somehow managing to avoid damaging the original face paint, the doll would be worth a buck. Maybe.
    (Feel free to not give moderator approval to this comment if you think it's too snarky.)
    Signed, Treesa

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    1. No biggie at all. That gal was not the brightest, so she'd probably have scrubbed the whole thing off and completely annihilated the doll. I mean it when I say she was NOT too bright. Nor too nice, hence my own snark.

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