"Should I open my toy?"
It's funny how one would ask this question. To answer that question, let's start from the definition of what is a toy.
According to Online Dictionary, a Toy is an object designed to be played with. The keyword here is Play. If you play with something in amusement, that object is your toy.
In that same definition, it is interesting to note in the olden usage, a Toy is classified as "any small thing of little value; trifle" because it has little value, one can throw away anything and anyhow he/she likes.
* Credit to eclectorama
For the two points above, it somehow contradict with toy collectors today. Firstly most of the toys now are quite costly and neither did many toy collectors actually play with it. Many collectors keep the toys mint in package and store or display it in some cabinets or some places which they deem safe.
Not forgetting there are other collectors who open one of the toy to play while keeping another set mint in package hoping in the near future the value of that toy will increase.
Toy collecting as a hobby on the whole is still new or at least for this century. Mostly, these toy collectors missed much on the toys they desire during their childhood. This desire was never satisfy and when they enter a time of economic power, they decided to buy back that satisfaction.
Value was the keyword here for toy collectors and here are 3 trains of thoughts I can think of with regarding some of the reasons why toy collector collect certain toys.
1. I like that toy and I want to play or display it
2. I like that toy because it is popular and I am growing to like it because of that.
3. I like that toy because it is popular and the value on the market will increase in time to come.
If you identify yourself into any one of the category above, the answer to your question to open or not to open your toy is clear.
Before I proceed further, I would like to point out that the following are my personal sharing and in no way saying otherwise is err.
Personally I felt the Golden age of toy collecting may have past. If you feel it has not, then you will likely to feel that within a decade of your toy collection. Here are some signs that you may encounter.
1. You buy so much and you never get to enjoy or play with the toy.
2. You buy toys but you are never satisfy with what you have
3. You looked at some toys and you asked yourself why on earth at that point of time you buy that toy and now you are starting to regret it when it is no longer popular as before.
4. If you treat buying toys as an investment, you will likely felt it is never a right time to sell it off or the return is just too little that you continue to keep it for later hoping for a miracle...
Isn't it funny that somewhere in your growing up days you missed out on some toys while you only have a handful and had a good time with it that time? Now you can get as many as you like but you are never able to be happy as you thought you were even when you have the full collection? What is wrong here?
Why I open my toy
Allow me to share with you why I choose to open my toy
1. Toys are made to play
Although most toy now are made good in display, the fun of the toy is still in playing. Now some may think playing toy is childish but personally I felt playing with toys is a form of exercising your ability to imagine and be creative. Sadly as we get older, we kind lost that touch mostly for the fear of being labeled childish.
To Childishness, I would like to quote something for C.S.Lewis
"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
- "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952)
2. Toys do not last forever
Like everything on earth, nothing last forever including you and me. However things just renew and refresh. I cannot say that I am right but I have witness some toy line get refresh and re-released. Because of that some toy value go up while a number of those also went down in "market" value. It is only a matter of time.
3. You can't take it with you
Think about what you owed right now and in ten or twenty or even forty years time, what will happen to the toys you owned? Are they still going to be a display in mint box. Now that they (the toys) also started to deteriorate? Are you going to pass it to your children and will they enjoy it and treasure it? Maybe they still hold on to your toys for the sake of memory of you when you are gone. Won't that be a burden to them?
Now that is something that is up to each individual to think about. Everyone is entitle to his/her own opinion and the choice is strictly on you. Since this is my blog it is right for me to share my thoughts.
To open or not is up to you but enjoy your toy you must. :)
It's funny how one would ask this question. To answer that question, let's start from the definition of what is a toy.
According to Online Dictionary, a Toy is an object designed to be played with. The keyword here is Play. If you play with something in amusement, that object is your toy.
In that same definition, it is interesting to note in the olden usage, a Toy is classified as "any small thing of little value; trifle" because it has little value, one can throw away anything and anyhow he/she likes.
* Credit to eclectorama
For the two points above, it somehow contradict with toy collectors today. Firstly most of the toys now are quite costly and neither did many toy collectors actually play with it. Many collectors keep the toys mint in package and store or display it in some cabinets or some places which they deem safe.
Not forgetting there are other collectors who open one of the toy to play while keeping another set mint in package hoping in the near future the value of that toy will increase.
Toy collecting as a hobby on the whole is still new or at least for this century. Mostly, these toy collectors missed much on the toys they desire during their childhood. This desire was never satisfy and when they enter a time of economic power, they decided to buy back that satisfaction.
Value was the keyword here for toy collectors and here are 3 trains of thoughts I can think of with regarding some of the reasons why toy collector collect certain toys.
1. I like that toy and I want to play or display it
2. I like that toy because it is popular and I am growing to like it because of that.
3. I like that toy because it is popular and the value on the market will increase in time to come.
If you identify yourself into any one of the category above, the answer to your question to open or not to open your toy is clear.
Before I proceed further, I would like to point out that the following are my personal sharing and in no way saying otherwise is err.
Personally I felt the Golden age of toy collecting may have past. If you feel it has not, then you will likely to feel that within a decade of your toy collection. Here are some signs that you may encounter.
1. You buy so much and you never get to enjoy or play with the toy.
2. You buy toys but you are never satisfy with what you have
3. You looked at some toys and you asked yourself why on earth at that point of time you buy that toy and now you are starting to regret it when it is no longer popular as before.
4. If you treat buying toys as an investment, you will likely felt it is never a right time to sell it off or the return is just too little that you continue to keep it for later hoping for a miracle...
Isn't it funny that somewhere in your growing up days you missed out on some toys while you only have a handful and had a good time with it that time? Now you can get as many as you like but you are never able to be happy as you thought you were even when you have the full collection? What is wrong here?
Why I open my toy
Allow me to share with you why I choose to open my toy
1. Toys are made to play
Although most toy now are made good in display, the fun of the toy is still in playing. Now some may think playing toy is childish but personally I felt playing with toys is a form of exercising your ability to imagine and be creative. Sadly as we get older, we kind lost that touch mostly for the fear of being labeled childish.
To Childishness, I would like to quote something for C.S.Lewis
"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
- "On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952)
2. Toys do not last forever
Like everything on earth, nothing last forever including you and me. However things just renew and refresh. I cannot say that I am right but I have witness some toy line get refresh and re-released. Because of that some toy value go up while a number of those also went down in "market" value. It is only a matter of time.
3. You can't take it with you
Think about what you owed right now and in ten or twenty or even forty years time, what will happen to the toys you owned? Are they still going to be a display in mint box. Now that they (the toys) also started to deteriorate? Are you going to pass it to your children and will they enjoy it and treasure it? Maybe they still hold on to your toys for the sake of memory of you when you are gone. Won't that be a burden to them?
Now that is something that is up to each individual to think about. Everyone is entitle to his/her own opinion and the choice is strictly on you. Since this is my blog it is right for me to share my thoughts.
To open or not is up to you but enjoy your toy you must. :)
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