80's Kids... THIS Thread Is For YOU!

[slidekellyslide]

Awesome collection Jeff. If you're ever in Lincoln, Nebraska I own two toy stores that specialize in vintage toys. I have or have had pretty much everything in your pics.

My stores were recently featured by Bloomberg:

https://www.quicktake.video/videos/2...Gp5r31s4PpnVpQ

[mrmopar]

I think I might have been a little too early for most of these, but then again I don't really remember most of the odd toys we had. I recall the more common Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars, Legos, the green army men and I want to say we either had, or friends had and we coveted stretch armstrong and rock em sock em robots. I also recall a smash up derby car set that had pop off pieces when they collided with each other.

Star Wars figures were popular as well and we had a bunch of figures, but don't think we ever had any of the larger toys.

When I got into baseball, a lot of the toys took a back seat to sports and then when video games came out like Intellivision and early Atari games, that was it.

[TedWill1939]

I remember playing with alot of the toys. They sure look crude and primative to what my son was playing with!

[bocca001]

Oh... I am that kid too. Well, at least with baseball/football cards and Star Wars. This stuff is "integrated" throughout my collection. Including the error card shelf (if you don't know about the Star Wars error card... look closely, but don't let it poke out your eye). And if you are really into Star Wars, you'll know the significance of the unopened figures. These were things my mom bought for presents, but never got around to giving me. Turned out to be a really good thing.

[Elberson]

Awesome collection..........

[CobbSpikedMe]

Very nice stuff. I feel bad not saying the GI Joes or Transformers are my favorites on the bunch, but for some reason the Voltron stuff is my favorite in the pics. And I think I did see some Thundercats figures in there if I'm not mistaken.

I took my time looking at the pics and it was very enjoyable...thanks for sharing all of them.

[TheRoundMound]

Thanks for sharing! Brought back a lot of memories of afternoons spent lost in my imagination

[thatkidfromjerrymaguire]

Fun thread idea. I can relate to this because as a child of the late 70's and 80's, I had many Star Wars, GI Joe, and Transformer toys. While some of them were sold off in garage sales over the years, the vast majority survived and were in storage in my parents' home until a couple years ago when my mom finally wanted that "junk" out of her basement.

I enjoyed going through them, but I realized, for the most part, I didn't really have any interest in collecting vintage toys or making a display out of them, and they weren't doing any good sitting in boxes in my basement. So over the last year and a half I sold pretty much everything on eBay.

Some of you may not be aware, but just as the interest (and prices) of baseball cards has been rising recently, I realized the is true of some vintage toys. And luckily, as a kid, I kept good care of my toys, ensured no parts were lost, kept a lot of the original boxes, etc., etc.

My goal was to sell my entire collection of toys and use the money to buy a key baseball card that I've had my eyes on for the last few years. And almost down to the exact dollar amount, the profit I made from selling my toys paid for this:

Mantle.JPG


So it was a very fun endeavor. It made it much easier to sell off my old childhood treasures knowing that I was going to spend it on something FUN that I would enjoy, instead of bills, etc. And it made it much easier to justify to my wife to buy an expensive baseball card without having to use ANY of our standard savings, checking, college account money, etc.

I kept a couple of my earliest toys around just because (a beat up R2 and C-3PO, and old Bobba Fett, etc.) but all the rest are now spread around the country...hopefully being displayed by another collector that gets just as much joy out of those toys that I get out of my cards.

Although I no longer have them, here are a few pictures of some of the nicer and rarer toys that helped fund my Mantle:

Millenium.jpg

deathstar.JPG

atst.jpg

cobra.jpg

cobra2.jpg