Behold The Valley of the Dolls

by David James Mansour

#4 1967 Standard Barbie

#12 Julia

#19 1972 Walk Lively Barbie

"My Two Kens": 1970 Talking Ken & 1971 Malibu Ken

#18 1972 Busy Barbie

#22 1974 Yellowstone Kelley

Barbie Talks! And so does her friends Brad, Ken, Christie, Stacey, P.J., Julia, and Truly Scrumptious!

Thank you for visiting Behold the Valley of the Dolls. The photos are all original to me (David James Mansour), my collection and are copyrighted to © Behold the Valley of the Dolls. I don't mind if you share but if you do share, please give me and Behold the Valley of the Dolls credit. I'd really appreciate it.

#1 1961 Ponytail Barbie

#7 1968 Christie

1987 Barbie & the Rockers

#9 1969 Twist 'n Turn "Marlo Flip" Barbie

#23 1975 Growing Up Skipper

The 1971 Malibu Ken has my heart. He's my favorite Ken of all Kens.

#8 1968 Stacey

#6 1968 Talking Barbie

The dolls of my generation... I'm happily a child from Barbie's Mod Era!

"Who's your favorite Barbie?" A question I am often asked, and honestly it's hard for me to answer. I mean, I have sentimental favorites like the 1970 Talking Ken and 1971 Malibu Ken (below) because these were the Ken dolls I played with as a child; or the 1987 Barbie & the Rockers (above) because they put me on the path of Barbie collecting when I received them as a birthday present in 1987.

Honestly, my "favorite" Barbie is always changing. It changes from day-to-day, week-to-week but I do have quite a few that continually reign as favorites—I think of them as the jewels in my collection.

Here I share 25 of my favorite Barbie and Ken dolls with photos of how they stand in my collection. Because my favorites are always changing they are not ranked in a "most favorite to least favorite" order but listed chronologically. Also I narrowed the favorites down to the dolls my older sister, younger sister and I actually played with as youngsters. As you can see by the abundance of dolls from 1967 to 1972, I'm definitely a Barbie kid of the Mod Era!

#2 1962 Ken

#11 1969 Truly Scrumptious

#3 1967 Twist 'n Turn Barbie

There's a variety of hair colors to choose from with the TNTs but I'm very much in love with the "Chocolate Bon Bon" (right). Although I have a Titian Reproduction TNT (left) an actual vintage doll from 1967 tops my "most wanted" list!