Ahhh, Skipper! I actually really liked Skipper. I think because I was also a “little sister”.
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Only had one Barbie and I think a Skipper. We may have had a Ken at some point. Back in those days, there were not multiple dolls, but multiple outfits. I still have some hand knit Barbie dresses my aunt made for them. Also had a Barbie dream house (made of cardboard) that was great. I especially love the little record album covers for the dream house!
I don’t have girls but was surprised when nieces were little that there really weren’t outfits for sale, only different kind of Barbie dolls!
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I’m a guy and no I didn’t have Barbies. What I did have was Johnny West and Chief Cherokee and Major Matt Mason dolls and equipment. I enjoyed them a lot as a pre teen. I didn’t want GI Joe. He had to many joints that just went in weird directions.
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Had many of the original Barbie Dolls (several Barbies, Midge, Skipper, Ken, and more). Was much more interested in the make-believe than clothes or other. They were all in their original boxes too! My mom gave them all away, to the daughter of one of her friends. At the time I didn’t care, but later realized they would have been worth a fortune, and a special memory to pass on to my own daughter! 
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I hear you and sympathize…but you can feel really good about your toys getting played with when given away, IMO.
One thing that makes me sad about collectible toys (like “never removed from box” types) is that it is basically putting monetary value on the absence of potential fun for a child. Like for every year that the plastic toy in the unopened plastic box gathers dust, there are kids who would have been brought joy by the toy, and meanwhile we waste more plastic manufacturing more toys, of which a subset gets stashed away by collectors…
Wish they would just stick to coins and bars of gold.
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My parents also didn’t allow us to have dolls, much less Barbies. On the rare occasion one showed up in the house, it would instantly disappear. We got Legos, cars, airplanes and building materials instead. My dad was a feminist, and wanted to discourage us from getting married and having kids too early. It worked for me, not so much for my sister, though.
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I remember two dolls that I really wanted, and I was thrilled to get them as Christmas presents. I got Chatty Cathy when I was around 5, and I got Little Miss No Name when I was in probably 2nd grade. Other than those, I really don’t recall having dolls. We had four boys & me, and my parents didn’t have a lot of money. Our toys were our swingset, bikes, pogo sticks, hula hoops, skip it, ice skates, roller skates, lots of books … oh, and our Jarts set!! 
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I had several Barbies, plus Midge, Skipper and Ken. My dad built a doll house for Christmas when I was about seven, scaled to fit Barbie furniture. The house and furniture disappeared when we moved the next year. I spent a lot of time creating new furniture from cardboard, contact paper, popsicle sticks, and fabric scraps. When we moved from temporary housing into the house my parents built, I spent the next couple of years playing on the nearby empty land creating roads, bridges, ponds, etc. I made hard hats for Barbie and her friends from aluminum foil and cardboard so they could be on my construction site.
My daughter loved Barbies and had way too many since her grandparents bought them for birthdays and Christmas. What both kids liked were the Disney character dolls that were the same size. D had Jasmine and Belle while S had Aladdin and the Beast/Prince; there may have other pairs I don’t recall. As much as they liked those dolls, they spent more time with Playmobil toys and Legos.
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I had Charmin’ Chatty, that talked (had records). I still have it (it’s in the box but used many, many times). It’s sitting in the same closet as my old Barbie stuff!
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This thread resurfaced a funny, family memory. The year we were given our Cindy’s my brother received a GI Joe; he was so excited, Joe even had a parachute! One Sunday after lunch, my father took us to the park to ‘launch’ Joe! I clearly picture my dad throwing GI Joe into the air to parachute down to safety. Alas, poor Joe’s parachute failed to open and his body broke apart upon impact with the ground, and his head landed at my brother feet.
My brother dissolved into tears and that was the end of his ’ playing with dolls’ days!
I had at least one Barbie and Ken, and lots of clothes. I remember a carrying thing, and is it possible there was some kind of mobile home thing? We moved across country when I was 12, and lots of my stuff was left behind.
My aunt, now 70, has a room dedicated to Barbies. I haven’t been in her house in probably 20 years, but her collection was quite impressive then. I suspect some of her Barbies, in original packaging, are worth some money.
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I remember having one Barbie. I didn’t really want more when I was a kid. I thought about buying these for my girls since they’re adopted from China. When they came out, I believe one was given to each adoptive family that stayed in the White Swan hotel, which was popular with the families.
They really weren’t into Barbies either though, so I never followed through.
I did like Little Kiddles, but what I really wanted was a toy Winchester rifle (got it) and a John Deer tractor (didn’t get).
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I had a couple that I remember growing up, but they weren’t my favorite toys.
D got some as birthday gifts when she was younger, but like me, they weren’t her favorite toys. She was more interested in books, tinker toys, stuffed animals, American Girls Dolls, and arts and crafts. I don’t think I ever bought D any Barbie dolls, she just wasn’t that interested in them. She always asked for other things…
I had one Barbie and lots of outfits. My fine motor skills weren’t great as a kid and I used to get frustrated trying to get those teeny doll clothes on and off. My sister had Skipper and I had Scooter (Skipper’s sister or friend?). I also remember having an Alan doll who I think dated Midge.
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After reading this thread I saw on IG there is a Malibu Barbie Cafe coming to Chicago this summer. Lol. I liked playing with Barbies, too. I had the camper, my neighbor friend had the airplane. Like many have mentioned here my daughter did not care for them.
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My brothers had GI Joes. Joe’s limbs must have been held together by a central rubber band. On one Joe, that band snapped and his legs became loose. We made him a wheelchair and he became the chief GI Joe—sort of like X-Men and Charles Xavier, but we did not know that at the time.
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Ken had groovy, shaggy brown hair AND removable facial hair for awhile in the 1970s. Wasn’t he replaced by a guy with a different name (Brad?) sometime in the late 1990s?
Cleaning out my folks’ old house, I found all these dolls and posed them together. Shaggy, porn-stached Ken with a limbless Barbie—serial killer Ken!
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Foreign to me. LOL. When I was a little girl, they hit the scene. My very conservative parents said they were way too advanced for a little girl so I never had one. I played with a plastic hobby type doll as my grannie crocheted outfits for them, remember that?, while my neighbor friend had her Barbies. Then I went on to have only sons so skipped it all again. Now, my darling little DIL has a Barbie and I just look at it and laugh. Never in my wheel of experience.
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Haha! Your GIJoe drank too much (they were legless!)
My brother’s GIJoe had a bad temper, and he lost his head! 
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My son had GI Joes and enjoyed making all those legs and arms bend in weird directions. He had a GI Joe with a fantastic, huge parachute. Poor thing was very abused by being thrown up in the air a billion times. The parachute didn’t work great, needless to say.
He had a GI Joe diver or something that came with a big dolphin. GI Joe and the dolphin swam in the bath. Long after GI Joe disappeared, the dolphin ended up on its own in the swimming pool, until it was finally filled up with gross green water. 
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