Consider a play on old toys

Jan 16, 2006

Toys aren’t the first thing you think of when you think antiques, says Clare Stewart in The Times, but perhaps they should be. While the antique furniture market has languished over the last few years, the price of old toys has rocketed.

No longer are toys seen merely as collectables for eccentrics. Today, they are increasingly spoken of as serious investments, thanks to the fact that Britain’s 40 and 50-something men now have the time and money to indulge in their childhood passions. Turnover at specialist toy auction house Vectis rose 15% to more than £6m last year. There’s something for everyone in this market, says Vectis chairman Bryan Goodall: “With an average lot value of £120, toys appeal to a broad market base.”

Predictably, given how much some men love trains, the best sellers in the toy market tend to be Hornbys: in the run up to Christmas, 110,000 new train sets were sold. But the real money is in the old ones. A Ludlow Castle loco and tender from Hornby’s golden age (1950-64) would have cost £4 8s 6d if it had been bought in 1963. If you wanted one in pristine condition now, it would cost you a good £300-£500. Other popular makes of trainset include Bassett-Lowke and Marklin. In December, a 1937 Marklin locomotive and side vehicle beat its top estimate of £15,000 to sell for £22,000 at Christie’s.Another area growing popular with investors is plastic toys from the 1960s and 1970s, such as Lego, Subbuteo and Action Man dolls. “Vintage” Action Man flippers, from dolls dressed as divers, can go for £3.50, and unboxed dolls from the 1970s for £150-plus, says The Independent. But if you have the box, and the doll is immaculate, prices shoot up: a pristine Action Man from the mid-1960s can go for more than £1,000.

Old movie figurines are also sought-after and tend to see their prices soar when new films in which they feature are released. When the Star Wars and Batman films are released later this year, for example, related figurines should see renewed interest.

But remember, when it comes to this kind of thing, good looks mean nothing, says Fiona Shoop, editor of Antiques and Collectables magazine. Manufacturers know the good-looking, exciting characters will be the most popular, so they make more of them. The less attractive characters are therefore rarer and more valuable.

An original 1980s Jabba the Hutt action playset is up for sale on eBay at about £25 without the box (even one with a broken left arm is priced at £20). Still, the market for figurines is still in its infancy, says Bryan Goodall: this means they don’t come up at auction much and investors have to try and buy over the internet or use car-boot sales, jumble sales and charity shops as hunting grounds.

Finally, keen collectors should be keeping an eye on the teddy-bear market, says BBC.co.uk, as it has become very popular over the last few years. For a few hundred pounds, you can pick up English-made bears from the first half of the 20th century.

But the real money is to be made in the crème de la crème of the teddy bear world - Steiff bears, says The Times. They were the first to be made (over a century ago) and have always been of the highest quality. With their pointed snouts, long arms and humped backs (the more humped, the older the bear is likely to be), early Steiff bears look much more like real bears than today’s teddies do. Most come in the teddy colours you’d expect, but if you see one that isn’t beige or gold, snap him up: the more unusually coloured ones are worth thousands.

New toys: not such a good deal

If you are looking to buy toys for investment purposes, buying brand new ones is a really rubbish way to do it, says the FT. According to Nationwide, parents who have splashed out on every best-selling toy since 1982 (My Little Pony, Transformers, and so on) would have spent a total of £284.05 in the past 22 years. Today that collection would be worth a mere £90 on eBay, giving you a nominal loss of 68%.

A Cabbage Patch Kid in 1984 would have set you back £29.99, for example. Buy now and you would get just £2.50 for it. If, instead, the £29.99 had been invested in a Nationwide children’s savings account, your child would now have £86.28 to play with. So a good savings account looks like the better deal.

Still, there are a few toys that have kept their value reasonably well. The 1996 toy of the year, the Buzz Lightyear Doll, cost £24.99 then, and still goes for about £20 second hand. Thunderbird’s Tracy Island is another winner, after a fashion: in 1992 it set you back £24.99, today it is worth £15.

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