How long will people collect old toys for? What I mean is how much further into the future do you think collectors will be gathering on blogs like this, meeting at toy fairs and looking for old toys?
More specifically how much life do you think Gerry Anderson toys have left? A hundred years? Five hundred years?
How long will the toys of the Sixties actually last before they turn to dust?
What do you think readers?
That's some different angles there, Woodsy.
ReplyDeleteI think people will continue to collect toys, ever since the pioneers in the 1960s brought it from something very eccentric for a grown-up to be pretty mainstream. But I do think most generations will concentrate on the toys they grew up with, with older toys becoming much more specialised fields perhaps, with less of a following.
Our Anderson toys will go from "I had one of those when young" to become more obscure and specialised as well I think, with younger generations probably preferring the Thunderbirds toys that are in the shops now because that is what -they- are now growing up with.
As to physically surviving, the plastic should be good for centuries though it might warp or discolour or I don't know if it isn't kept in stable temperatures. Metal parts will be prone to corrosion and go much earlier.
The biggest advantage future collectors will have is that they'll follow on after us, the current collectors who are preserving our toys. Whereas we are still looking for toys from a time when they weren't collected and preserved by collectors, and can only hope to find toys that still turn up in attics and basements where they were stored by (the parents of) the children that played with them.
Best -- Paul
Very insightful Paul. I suppose we are talking about the future of nostalgia more broadly speaking. I imagine humans always being nostalgic about their childhoods. Maybe there will be nostalgia palaces were you go to revisit those days through virtual reality. If they offer solyent green biscuits there then don't go in!
DeleteYou won't like reading this, but this is the situation in the U.S.:
ReplyDeleteWhy Your “Collectibles” Are Worthless
https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/why-your-collectibles-are-worthless/
A very interesting take on things Mike. Things are obviously worse in the US than we are lead to believe here in the UK.
DeleteI always have this recurring fantasy of a SWORD Moon Bus in the glass cabinet of a Mars colony canteen some decades forward. It's a law of nature that rare toys will become rarer still in the course of time. I also believe that cool toys have the ability to transcend their historic origins, as their imagery will be recycled in culture in various and sometimes unpredictable ways. Or simply because they just are so way cool, signifying the future past that never came to be.
ReplyDeleteAlso very insightful Arto. Toys are indeed time travellers - like LP's and books and Videos - all glimpses into the past from the vantage of the present or as you say, the future. In a way, Gerry Anderson's worlds are all yet to ahppen having been set so far ahead. I winder of SWORD was the furthest ahead in years, 3031 AD?
DeleteThis is a fascinating article. I just bought a vintage Bandai Captain Scarlet Helicopter on eBay for $160 including shipping. I have seen identical items for $400 and $800 from different dealers. Does this mean my $160 toy is worth $800? Nah, someone has to actually buy the higher priced items and that still doesn't fix the value.
ReplyDelete-And I bought it because I LOVE it, the price was immaterial (although at the upper limit of my ability to pay!)
This whole Dollar value thing disturbs me, I have things because I like them, not because they "might" be worth something!
Yes Lewis, getting what we like is at the heart of a collection. Leave investments to rich people.
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