Does 宝 have its own history separate from 寶?
As Stan hinted at, 宝 is a Japanese Shinjitai character. It is also a simplified Chinese character, but that's coincidental.

Perhaps this fact isn't so well known, but PRC aren't the only ones that performed simplification to Chinese characters - it is merely the most well known and widespread. Japan attempted their own simplification process, but theirs was less extensive and less radical.

Therefore, to the uninitiated, it may seem that Japanese Kanji is identical to Traditional Chinese. But there are simplified forms that are not as simple as PRC's Simplified Chinese, e.g.


  廣: (Shinjitai: 広), (Simplifed Chinese: 广)


And those that have been simplified differently, e.g.:


  圓 (Shinjitai: 円), (Simplified Chinese: 圆)


And forms that happen to be the same; 宝 is an example but so are 台 and 国.

Although the two simplification systems happened independently, may simplified characters are based on cursive forms so it's no surprise that there are many characters that are the same between the two systems.