Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Toy Collector: Back to the Future?

Yesterday I posted some old sales advertisements for the Battle Force 2000 toys. My buddy John, from Clawful Punch, commented about wishing he had a time machine. This brings up a conversation topic I've been wanting to post about for a long time. This is a "What would you do?" issue for toy collectors. I am going to apologize for the a little bit of set up before I ask the question, but I want people to at least understand the way I'm looking at this question.

Below is a photograph of myself from around 1989. My Grandmother took this picture of me playing with my GI Joes in my parent's basement. I lived in that house my entire childhood. Even when I "out grew" toys I never got rid of my GI Joe (besides a few vehicles) and Star Wars toys. I did sell off Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, X-Men, and Ninja Turtles to name a few line. So every toy in the photo below (except the Battle Force 2000 vehicle in the bottom  right hand corner) is still in my collection.






















If you had access to a time machine, but could only make one toy related trip back in time, would you travel back to...

A) bring sealed copies of the vintage toys you always wanted as a kid back to the present for your current collection

or

B) purchase the toys you always wanted, and give them to your childhood self (hopefully they survive being played with to be in your collection in the present)

Now I know some people sold off all their childhood toys or lost stuff in various moves over the years, but I'd love to know what everybody things. I think this could be a tough choice.Oh and either choice will have no ripple effect on your situation in live in the present besides what may or may not be in your collection.

4 comments:

  1. Well I have a problem with my childhood self. First around 1981 my friends robbed my house and stole all of my toys. Yes Dale LaValley that includes you. THEN in 1991 when I was starting to have a collection again...some kids broke in and burned our house to the ground. So there is not really much I could do. I would have told my 30 year old self though to never sell the Toybiz collection.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Am going with "A" on this one Kevin and Oh, the things i would bring back!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is why I posted this, I wanted to see what everyone would say. In fact I was hoping to hear from even more readers and fellow bloggers.

    So here are my thoughts. My top two most wanted toys as a kid were Version 2 Snake-Eyes and the USS Flagg. So I can travel back to 1985 and bring them sealed to the present and enjoy looking at the package (I own two of each of them loose currently by the way) or I could buy them and drop them on my front porch with a note that says "Hey Kevin, have fun but take good care of these. By the way... save the boxes too!" So I wouldn't have a sealed one of either of them in my collection, but I would have the most kick ass memories of play with these awesome toys as a kid. Since most of toy collecting is for nostalgia, I feel like I would enjoy having them as a kid more than as an adult collector. I do understand that not everyone had the childhood toy collection stability that I had. Obviously the childhood option is less financially advantageous, but I don't really collect anything for its cash value.

    ReplyDelete
  4. (B)Kevin.I used to think that I was spoiled as a kid,in fact it's something I've said over and over on past posts.But now that I look at it,i wasn't a bad kid.And i'm not being biased either.I kicked butt in school and constantly brought home good grades.Long story short...my old self would travel back and by two sets of Dreadnoks(the initial group).One to bring back with me sealed and the other to give my younger self.I loved the Dreadnoks as a kid but only had Monkeywrench.In fact I still have a picture of Thrasher,Monkeywrench and some other Dreadnoks that I drew as a kid.

    ReplyDelete