From baseball cards to Beanie Babies, there is a deep desire in the American psyche to turn childhood toys and collectibles into treasures.
Last week, in a report for the Times Free Press website, I interviewed Joel Magee, an expert in collectibles who goes by the label the "Toy Scout."
Magee, a toy collector regularly featured as a Disney toy expert on the TV series "Pawn Stars," says he recently found the holy grail of Hot Wheels collectibles, a 1968 Camaro prototype car with enamel white paint that could be worth up to $100,000.
"I've already been offered $70,000," Magee, a 58-year-old West Palm Beach, Florida, resident said in an interview.
Yowza!
Magee said novice collectors aren't likely to find a Hot Wheels prototype in the attic. Only someone connected to a worker in one of the original Hot Wheels factories in California or Hong Kong might have had access to such a rare piece, he said.
But that shouldn't discourage anyone from hauling out their old Hot Wheels collection to see what the cars are worth.
While you're looking, keep an eye out for an early Hot Wheels Redline Oldsmobile 442, Magee said. One manufactured in 1969 or 1970 could easily fetch $200 to $400, he said.
Hot Wheels hit the market in 1968, and even common cars from the earliest years of manufacturing can fetch $10 to $40 each, he said. So if you've got a shoe box full of early Hot Wheels, you could be holding a basket of money.
Magee said a good way to determine the value of a collectible toy, such as a Hot Wheels car, is to look at completed transactions on eBay. Pick a midpoint between the highest and lowest sale price - not asking price - to determine the approximate market value.
He said the more valuable Hot Wheels are so-called red-line cars, so named because they have red lines (instead of whitewalls) on the wheels.
And while you're in the attic, look around for these highly collectible 20th-century toys:
* A "Lost in Space" Roto-Jet gun. In a box it could be worth $15,000 to $20,000.
* A Boba Fett J-slot rocket-firing prototype action figure from an early installment of the "Star Wars" series is a six-figure item. In a box it could be worth about $250,000, Magee said. One out of a box recently sold for $168,000, he said.
Magee said he got interested in toy collecting when, as a young adult, he spotted a G.I. Joe lunchbox at a flea market in Sioux City, Iowa. It was just like one he had as a kid, which set him on a mission to recapture samples of all his favorite childhood toys, he said.
"I wanted to get my childhood back," he said.
Magee said people begin to develop nostalgia for their childhood playthings when they reach about 40 years old, so even toys from the 1980s are now gaining in popularity among collectors.
With that in mind, I wondered what toys and playthings of my children's generation will someday be worth some money. Turns out there are emerging collectible markets for some rare Thomas the Tank Engine toys, early iPhones and Stephen Strasburg baseball card.
If you want to be flush with collectibles in, say, 2050, hoard these items now.
Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.