Of toys and ebay
Last week, someone advertised a bunch of used toys that her kids had outgrown on the neighborhood email list. A couple of them looked interesting, so, for $25, we got some k’nex, a snap-in circuits kit, and a bunch of tubes that connect together to make forts and stuff. The tubes came with a manual, but some of the things that they showed required more pieces than we got, so I went online to see if I could find some more pieces.
It turns out that they’re Playskool Pipeworks, and are almost as old as I am. The good news is that if my kids decide that they’re not interested in the forts any more, we can sell the pieces for a lot more than we paid. The bad news is that I’m not buying more pieces, not at those prices.
And then today, via Daddy Types, I found out that my sister’s old dollhouse furniture is also apparently collectible.
Who’d have thunk? Not me.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Basil keeps telling his mom that he wants to go through her attic and sell all his original Star Wars toys, and she won’t let him near them.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Whenever I wander into the nursery at church I can’t help but contemplate how much that totally intact 1967 Fisher Price Little People Hospital is actually worth.
To a certain extent, however, I wonder if this tendency for current adults to obsess over the toys of our youth is healthy. We sometimes get the “Back to Basics” toy catalog … which is not really for kids, it’s for the adults in the house. My kids look thru the catalog and immediately toss it aside. It contains no references to soccer, no dress-up clothes. They don’t even know what the old phone *is*. But the childless grownups that I know pick it up and love it. Check it out, they say! Slot cars! Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots! Coleco electronic football! These toys are regularly showing up in BARS in Chicago at least.
Evidently today’s kids must reinvent childhood if they want to define it their own way.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
I don’t think all of the old toys only have appeal to grownups — one of D’s friends got the Rockem Sockem robots, and D thought it was awesome, and there were an awful lot of Star Wars characters at the neighborhood Halloween parade over the weekend. (Interestingly, mostly Vader and storm troopers. No Han, no Luke. One Jedi that may have been supposed to be Annekin, and one girl with the braids that could have been Leia or whatsherface.)
October 30th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I totally agree that many toys truly are timeless. My point is, I guess, that a couple of generations ago people understood when they had entered adulthood and, to get biblical, put aside childish things. The 40-year-old virgin with the apartment full of action figures? That’s just a little too real in my world.
October 30th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Jen, I just received the Back to Basics toy catalog and was contemplating buying the Snoopy Snow Cone. I was deprived of that and the Easy Bake Oven as a kid. I love perusing old board games on EBAY – it brings back so many great memories. As an artist I love comparing the graphics from year to year.