Toys Gala More Than Fun, Games--It’s a Big Business : Hobby: Show brought out the kid--and capitalist--in those who came to sell, buy.
John Musante of Agoura packed up his wife and daughters early Sunday and headed west on the Ventura Freeway in search of his childhood.
The prize of his daylong excursion: a small plastic British Centurion World War II-era model tank packaged like new but sporting a 1990s price tag of $28 plus tax.
“I like collecting things I couldn’t buy as a child,” he said, showing off the latest addition to his private toy collection. “I couldn’t afford them then, but I can now.”
The Musantes were among hundreds of people who streamed through the Oxnard Community Center on Sunday to buy, sell and barter old-time toys and movie memorabilia.
The Toyrific Toy and Collectible Show, sponsored for the first time in Ventura County, featured everything from McDonald’s Happy Meal characters and Star Wars products to 1960s Matchbox cars and G.I. Joes.
“There are dealers who do it for the money, but I don’t care about that,” said Musante, a produce distributor whose wife, Anita, tagged along with their daughters, Theresa, 8, and Elizabeth, 4. “I just display these at home for my own enjoyment.”
But for most people at the show Sunday, toys are big business.
A prewar cast iron model truck was fetching $425 in its original box. “And that’s a cheap one,” said Mike Stannard, who promoted the show.
“I put two kids through college buying and selling toys,” said Tom Gawron of North Hollywood. “You buy a toy you think may be valuable in 10 or 20 years. This is no fooling around.”
Gawron, a planner for Macy’s department stores who has been collecting for decades, bought several Star Wars clocks in 1978 for $12 each. He said they brought in $30 or more at the toy shows he works these days.
“It’s like the stock market,” he said. “You have to be in it for the long run and you have to enjoy it.”
Hal Fowler of Los Alamitos transformed his passion for G.I. Joe into a second career.
Spend a few minutes with him and Fowler will tell you that the original American war hero was fashioned in the mold of John F. Kennedy.
“Look at the two profiles,” he says excitedly, comparing portraits of JFK and a “Joe.”
Fowler should know--he wrote the book. He was selling his “Field Manual for Collecting G.I. Joe” on Sunday for $15. Most of the 1,000 copies from the initial run in October are gone, he said, and he is gearing up for a second printing.
“G.I. Joe has gone big. Very big,” Fowler says. “It’s more or less the yuppies--the guys that had G.I. Joe as a kid and now they find their parents have thrown them all away.”
Other items of interest being tendered on Sunday included a Partridge Family trading card set ($175); a Chewbaca Star Wars mug ($65); a boxed Batmobile model car ($425); a Dale Evans “Queen of the West” cowgirl costume ($100); and a 1960 Bob’s Big Boy menu featuring a $1 steak sandwich ($30).
The promoter was asking $1,200 for his boxed Luke Skywalker radio headset that sold for $15 in 1977. “I sold one three years ago for $800,” Stannard explained. “They didn’t make very many of them.”
Ted and Carolyn Smith drove 100 miles to see if they could find rare Happy Meal characters to add to their collection, which now fills 11 trunks stashed in their Upland home.
“I have two Ronald McDonald dolls where you push the stomach and he blows a whistle,” Carolyn said proudly, pointing out the treasured curio in her handy reference guide to McDonald’s collectibles. “It’s just fun for us.”
