The Handlers and Matt Matson started Mattel as a picture-frame manufacturing concern, but Elliot Handler began using the scraps from this enterprise to make dollhouses. After Matson sold his interests in the company to the Handlers, Mattel is transformed into a toy company that has assumed global proportions today. Perhaps no other single product typifies the Mattel product line than Barbie. Since its introduction in 1958, the doll has become a ubiquitous plaything in the U.S. and around the world. In 1992, Mattel was quoted as having a value of $1.6 billion, and it was suggested that the average American girl owned seven Barbie dolls (Lord, 1994). By the turn of the century, American consumer statistics had increased to ten dolls per child, and it was estimated that a Barbie doll was being sold every second (Lord, 1999); today, it is estimated that two Barbie dolls are sold every second (Lord, 2004).