Happy 65th, Barbie. Let’s go party with Chicago’s oldest Barbie club
CHICAGO -- Collecting stuff is not what it used to be.
Collecting stuff used to mean hours, days, weeks, years of searching, rummaging through flea markets, visiting estate sales, scanning classified ads in newspapers and maybe, if you’re lucky, striking up a friendship with someone collecting the same thing.
The internet, of course, made collecting less a big-game hunt than a morning errand. But it also, for many collectors, diminished the best part of collecting: the collecting community. Steven Emmert, for instance, collects dolls. “Some things you learn online, but there’s much more you learn just being among people who want the same thing.”
That’s why he joined Windy City Collectors.
They meet monthly, every second Thursday, at Russell’s Barbecue in Elmwood Park. They don’t meet there for the barbecue. Or even — as far as I can tell, having attended a couple of meetings — to horse trade or decide if they’re sitting on collectible goldmines.
It’s for the love of Barbie.
All things Barbie. The Barbie you find at Target, the Barbie you find twisted inside an old cardboard box in the attic, the Barbie you only get from Mattel direct marketing, Barbie shoes and Barbie school folders, Barbie sports cars, Barbie real estate, Barbie dresses.
When you are among
