To Play or Not to Play? - San Antonio,TX

Anything you give to the kids should be something that can be played with.
If you are buying something that's a collectors item (it's to sit in the original box forever) - put it away in a closet somewhere and never tell the kids you have it - it's more of an investment thing rather than something to play with.

I would never give a child a toy and tell them "now you can't play with it, it's so special". If *I* wanted to collect special items, then I need to do that as my own hobby, not inflict it on my kid.

Shelves of toys not to be touched should be reserved for mom or dad's office... I just can't see giving my child a toy they couldn't use immediately. If my son decided he wanted to save something and collect it, great. But if he got mad at me later for letting him play with them... well, I'd just laugh and remember that I, too, was ungrateful and didn't understand some things until I had my own kids.

PS: I am married to a man who has re-collected many of the toys his mom threw out; they are all in original boxes and we never see them, they are packed up. Collections which never get used aren't all they are cracked up to be. That stuff just takes up space!

When I went to a convention a couple of years ago, I got to meet Peter Mayhew. He played Chewbacca in the Star Wars movie and Chewbacca was my imaginary friend as a little girl. I cried when I met him (which totally confused my daughter, who had no idea who he was, hee) and told him that when I was a little girl, instead of having dolls I took Chewbacca action figures with me everywhere. The guy who sits at the booth with him and takes money for autographs and stuff said "imagine how much money those would have been worth if you'd kept them in the box." My response was "I'd rather have all the memories of playing with them than whatever money they might be worth now."

Sure, those *might* be worth something later, but it's not a guarantee. If it's a toy she genuinely wants and would play with, I'd let her have one and play with it. (Unless it's ridiculously expensive to buy now.)

My opinion is this:

If you want to buy a special edition toy (or whatever) as a gift for someone, you give it to them expecting they will use it (play with it). If you want to buy an investment, then you buy it and put it aside yourself.

If, in the case of a special edition Barbie, you want to give a child a gift AND think it might increase in value in later years, then buy the child a gift AND the special edition item FOR YOURSELF and put it up and keep it put up yourself.

To buy a gift/toy and give it to a child and then put a caveat on it that says... but ooooooh this isn't for playing... is just mean.

--By the way.. if you haven't, watch Toy Story and Toy Story 2. Especially Toy Story 2.

Why would you buy a toy for a child and then tell them they cannot play with it. You buy a collectible, you do not show it to them. When they grow up then you can give it to them.

This question made me smile because in our stuffed-toy-loving household, we treasure the movie "Toy Story 2." See it, if you haven't already. The Prospector toy is "mint, in the box, never opened" and therefore valuable, but the other toys have had owners -- and been damaged, and been loved. It's an amusing and touching look at the idea of why toys should be played with, from the toy's perspective. I'm not saying that Holiday Barbie is going to turn out self-centered and treacherous like the Prospector if she's never unboxed, but....

I would let my kid play with a toy. Unless you want to be truly serious about collecting certain mint toys yourself, because YOU want to collect them, I would not worry about keeping them "because they might be valuable someday." That's a lot of "might" and "someday." Sure, some Barbies are valuable now and likely to stay that way, but unless the parents want to get into keeping them in perfect shape, or tracking the toy collector market for the right moment to sell....I say, let the kids play with them.

I"m sure there were lots of folks who purchased those once-popular Cabbage Patch Kids and Ty stuffed animals and Furbys and other trendy toys, expecting they'd increase in value, and maybe a few have...but the bottom also can fall out of those kinds of markets after people make huge investments. So I say let kids live in the now and have fun.

I do not have any collector toys.

I have decided to save some toys that my kids have played with (Thomas the Trains for example) so my kids can give them to their own children.

I thought it was so cool that one of my friends had a ton of old Lego items for his sons.

My MIL talked about buying my daughter porcelain dolls. I looked at her and said " So, you want to give her a toy and tell her that she cannot play with it?" I was horrified and she immediately saw my point. I simply do not buy toys that cannot be played with...and I hope that others do not for my children either. Once my MIL bought this wooden rooster thing from Amish country for my son. He was about 1 or 2. I opened it up and let him play with it. It kept his interest for about 5 minutes and then went into the toy box. Other toys that made noise were just so much more interesting to him. She came over one day and saw the damn rooster in the toy box and got offended because it was supposed to be "special". Nevertheless, the toy ended up breaking and I threw it out.

If it's not like a porcelain doll that is strictly a collectable, I'd let DD play with it. I had a friend who had a Cabbage Patch Doll in her mom's closet in a box that she couldn't play with (only look at) and I always wondered who the doll was really for - the mom or the kid. Why buy a kid a toy she can't use? Especially a popular one?

Former friend of mine found out the hard way that you don't give a kid a collectable if they don't already have that collection and care for it. My SD took nail polish to a horse model...Friend was horrified, but she had also not paid attention to the fact that SD had no special collections.

I'm glad your DD is playing with her Barbie.

Any toy my daughter received, she was free to play with.
Same for clothes. I took her to the circus when she was five. It was one of the last ones that Gunter Gabel Williams performed in before he died, and I bought her a shirt with his picture on it. The only size they had was an adult large, so she wore it for pajamas. My ex wanted to seal it up in plastic after Williams died, because he thought it would be worth a lot of money someday. I told him that it was a t-shirt, not the Mona Lisa, and that if she wanted to wear it, she would damn well do so.

Updated

Any toy my daughter received, she was free to play with.
Same for clothes. I took her to the circus when she was five. It was one of the last ones that Gunter Gabel Williams performed in before he died, and I bought her a shirt with his picture on it. The only size they had was an adult large, so she wore it for pajamas. My ex wanted to seal it up in plastic after Williams died, because he thought it would be worth a lot of money someday. I told him that it was a t-shirt, not the Mona Lisa, and that if she wanted to wear it, she would damn well do so.

I'd put it up and not let her play with it. I'd put it on her display shelf or something like that. Then if she really likes Barbies I'd get her a bunch to play with.

If I spent that kind of money on a keepsake that's not necessarily a toy and I assume it was to display only then I'd probably say something to the mom.

But all in all if your child wants to take a $40-$80 toy and play with it and you're okay with that then let her enjoy...lol.

My grandma gave me a holiday edition Barbie once (I think I was around 6-7 years old?)

I couldn't understand why I wasn't allowed to play with it, and didn't have any other Barbies, so one day I opened it and played with it... Then got in trouble and she refused to buy me any more. Lol. (She switched to porcelain dolls instead... Can't really play with those.)

Now, I kinda wish I hadn't. Not just for the increased value of the doll, bit for the sentimentality too. Buuut, kids are impulsive, and most prefer to play with toys rather than look at them.

I think that if you want to collect them, you should put in a special shelf high in the room where it can be seen, but it is understood that it is t to play with. Or, keep it in your room and she can look at it in here when she wants to. Then when she gets older and no longer cares so much about playing with them, she can have them to display as she wants.

If you don't have an interest in collecting them, might as well let her play! A lone special edition (that is available to he public) isn't really worth much in the end... It's the collections that are valuable... And there is more sentimental value to something that is loved and enjoyed.

When you buy a collectible toy for a child who is not into collectibles then you are really buying the toy in a box for yourself. You can give the collected toy to the child when they also want to collect. It's like when you save baby clothes or other sentimental items to give them when they have a baby.

Years ago, my daughter bought a Christmas Barbie and showed it to her 6 yo daughter telling her this is a collectible to be saved for when she was grown. They had a conversation about collecting and value. My granddaughter was not interested, didn't think of the doll as a toy and went back to playing with her new not so special Barbie. They took the Barbie out of the closet a few times and admired her but daughter did not expect to play with her.

Toys are for playing with. Having a special doll or figure is normal, but too often having one leads to a collection of not-so-special items. I have a small stuffed monkey that was a childhood gift from my dad. I took it to college with me and suddenly I was constantly being gifted with monkeys and banana themed stuff for every occasion. It took years before I felt okay with getting rid of all but my original monkey and one cute figurine from a woman that I'm still friends with today.

A few months ago I sold a ton of Barbie stuff for a woman that had been collecting in years. I could barely get rid of the "mint in box" dolls (1980s-Now) that she collected as an adult, but the well played with and often damaged dolls from her childhood made a lot of money. Her childhood fondness got out of hand and led to a collection that could not possibly regain that feeling.

children should not be given collectors' items for posterity. some kids WILL want to 'save' them, but most want to play with their dang toys.
and should.
khairete
S.

My son was allowed to play with MOST everything.. but every now and then, he'd receive a keepsake gift, in which case, knowing it was special and simply meant to mark an occasion, we kept that one aside.. he didn't miss out, he had plenty of other things to play with... we also didn't keep things in plain sight..