Toy collectors scour garage sales and online auctions for vintage playthings. Some look for toys they loved as children—or ones they longed for as kids but never owned. Others are in it for the thrill of the hunt—the challenge of finding an original 1959 Barbie in the black-and-white swimsuit or the 1975 Deluxe Edition of Monopoly in the leather case. Then there are collectors who buy and sell toys because there is money to be made.
A lot of money.
So how do you know which toys are worth the most money? Toys that are hard to find tend to sell for the most money. For example, a pink Hot Wheels Volkswagen Microbus from 1969 called the Beach Bomb is worth more than $150,000 today. Only 144 of them were ever made and only two of them in pink. Why so few? They were prototypes—that is, models used for testing. And they had a big flaw. They tended to tip over. The design was never manufactured and sold to the public.
The Luke Skywalker action figure that sold for $25,000 was rare too, and for a similar reason. The lightsaber it came with broke easily, and the company stopped making the toy soon after it was released.
A toy’s condition can also affect its value. The more like new an item is, the more it’s worth. The more worn-out it is, the less it’s worth. And a toy in its original packaging can often fetch the highest price.
