Collecting Wind Up Toys

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If you're a kid in the 1940's, 1950's or 60's, i'm pretty sure you have fond memories of your childhood toys especially the wind up toys.

The action provided by the spring driven tinplate wind up toys whether hopping, nodding, walking or rolling were so cute and novel (at that time) that it attracted a loyal following and appealed to people of all ages.

As we got older and earned more discretionary income, we have that nostalgic urge to recapture those childhood days long gone and at least tangibly owned those wind up toys we loved as a kid.

The Europeans started the craze of commercially producing the wind up toys as early as 19th century, the Americans followed suit, only to be followed by the Japanese toy makers( post WWll period) as they were attuned to the lifestyle and culture of the American market.

As plastics were incorporated to the toy making industry and the advent of the battery operated toys, the wind up toys took a backseat especially after World War ll.

Highly collectible and sought after wind up toys were made from the 1930's to 1950's and from toy manufacturers such as Lehmann and Martin, Marx, Unique Art and TPS (Japanese) and many others.

Scarcity, condition ( no scratches and missing toy parts) and popular character name ( e.g. Popeye, Buck Rogers) would be the best guide to the wind up toy's value.

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Collecting Postcards

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Sending Postcards was a means of communications when telephone wasn't invented yet. Postcards were convenient because it cost half the price of paper and envelope. Very convenient indeed, especially for travelers.

Postcards made postage cheaper and mail lighter.

Postcards make collectible items because people love correspondence and are intensely interested in visual arts. We buy postcards as personal records of our travels.

But the message in the back of the postcard and recalling the circumstances in which they were written makes it even more memorable.

Collectors of postcards usually narrow down their focus on a single theme. Like, they collect only, vintage postcards, photo postcards, museum art postcards, color postcards, black and white postcards, linen postcards, white border postcards, multi-views (postcards with more than one pictures in them), postally used or unused postcards, postcards illustrated by a single artist, from the same publishing company, humurous or comic postcards, patriotic postcards, etc.

You can as well choose to collect postcards on a single subject such as writers, events, cities, universities, castles, roller coasters, lighthouses, dinosaurs, aviation, American Indians, cathedrals, advertising, movie stars, nudes, signed artist, African American, fairies, railways, British royalty, shipping, boating lakes, yacht racing, diners/cafes/drive-ins, gas stations, fireworks, bridges, stadiums, Olympics, hot air baloons, volcanoes, folklore creatures like unicorns, Greek/Roam gods etc.

Basically, you buy postcard that catches your eye. Forget value.

The most collectible and highly sought after postcards are Halloween postcards by illustrator Ellen Clapsaddle.

Shop around hotels, airports,post offices,yard sales,antique shops,coin and stamp shops to get a feel for the going rate of your chosen subject, artist, period or areas. In Ebay, if you find postcards you particularly like, bid aggressively. You might not see it again.

These are the variety of factors that can skyrocket the value of a postcard :

1. Vintage postcards from pre 1918 in the category of holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's day, Halloween,Fourth of July, Valentine's day and Easter.

2. If the subject is a town no one has heard of.

3. If the subject is a famous sports figure.

4. Postally used postcards. The stamps absolutely certify the age of a given postcard. As it not only dates the postcard, the stamps with postage cancellation marks have their own collection value as well.

5. If the subject is heritage material such as, famous shops no longer exist, or shops that have been passed down from generation to generation.

6. If the postcard contained the depiction of lifestyles and events which are vanishing or no longer exist.

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Collecting Comic books

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Egghead. Bookworm. Do these names ring a bell? They are the less popular enemies of our favorite Cape Crusader Batman. Expect Hollywood to be digging deep into their cornocupia of characters and working on silver screen adaptations of comic book superheroes and anti-heroes.

Big movie producers may not be avid comic book collectors but they can smell astronomical revenues at the box office. Think of X-men,Superman, Iron Man, Spiderman movie installments.

Imagine the hundreds of millions of dollars, these comic book superheroes based movies, raked in on opening day alone. Naturally, the domino effect of this phenomenon would be, the comic book industry is a big business in itself.

Afterall, this whole new revolution will surely increase the value of our collection of vintage comic books.

Comic books collecting range from accumulating these wonderful packets of art of the Golden Age (1930's to 1950's) to the Silver Age (late 50's to 60's), Bronze Age (early 1970's to early 1980's), Copper Age ( early 1980's to early 1990's) and Mid 1990's to present called Modern Age. Now you know, which particular age your comic book collection mainly comes from.

If your are an investment comic book collector and plans to resell your collection at a later date, usually, its the # 1 issues of a certain character who first appeared in a comic book that command a substantial amount and are highly sought after.

But of course it also depends on the condition of the comic book, the volatility of the market and most important of all is, if someone is willing to pay for your asking price. As cliche as it may sound though, the truest measure of your comic book's value is what it means to you and the pleasure you get from owning these babies.

The basics of storytelling comprise of a beginning, middle and an end. In comic books, when a particular storyline starts and ends, it's called a story arc. So whether you started as an Archie, Richie Rich then graduated to Superman fan, the best place to start collecting is a new story arc.

So i suggest you go buy back issues of your favorite comic books at least a year prior to the present. So you will be able to determine the direction when there's a change in the storyline.

Comic books , like any other ephemera are paper. Acids, finger oils, ultra violet light, dust and extreme change in room temperature all destroy paper. Wash hands before handling these tiny little masterpieces.

Put it in comic- sized plastic bag with backing boards to protect the spine. Place them in storage boxes and make sure the room temperature is constant to make your collection in best possible condition.

If you want to step up in being a more serious comic book collector (with ROI in mind) you may want to :

1. Buy comic books in multiple copies.

2. Shell out cash to have them graded professionally.

3. Do research in which areas and time to sell comic books by buying reliable comic book price guide like Overstreet Price Guide or Wizard Magazine.

4. Go to where comic book conventions are.


Collecting comic books are fun. Reading them stimulate the mind and imagination to conjure up worlds of adventure. Beyond your love for the stories, comics also improve your diction (the dialogues and lines are smart). Most of all the rewarding friendships that have resulted from collecting comic books.


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