Vintage Barbies discovered in Manitoba Museum archives

The Manitoba Museum is cataloguing some vintage items that are suddenly becoming hot this summer.

Barbie has been a pop culture mainstay through the decades, but this summer's hit movie about the blonde bombshell doll is causing a surge in popularity.

Coincidentally, the Manitoba Museum recently discovered it had some vintage Barbie dolls and accessories in excellent condition, donated as part of a larger doll collection more than 25 years ago.

Curatorial assistant Rylee Dejong was very excited to make the discovery.

"I came across this large collection of dolls from this one donor and then found that there were some Barbies in the collection as well," she said.

Dejong said there were well over 100 dolls in the entire collection, but only about ten Barbies.

"One of the originals from 1960, which is really cool. One of the original cars that was released in 1962. And then there's some in their original packaging," said Dejong.

She said some of the Barbies still had their original clothing while others were in handmade outfits. Dejong's favourite is a ballerina Barbie, which brings back a lot of nostalgia for her. "Just to have that in the original box and the ballet stuff, I find that really cool," she said.

Dejong said the person who donated the collection had a lifelong love of dolls. "She collected for her whole life. It was just a passion of hers."

The Barbies are now being catalogued, with all important information about them going into the museum's records.

There are currently no plans for public exhibition of the dolls.