Vintage Toys Could Bring Big Cash Out Of Your Attic
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — It's becoming one of the fastest ways to make some cash—selling your vintage toys.
A $150 dress?
A $1,000 Hot Wheels car?
A $350 action figure?
A $300 video game?
Vintage toys, games and action figures you might have in a box, closet or toy chest could be worth some serious dough.
Jeremy Sazaki evaluates vintage toys and collects them. We met him inside one of Sacramento's most popular vintage toy stores, Toy Fusion. There was no confusion that items left inside the package are the most valuable.
But most of us aren't going to leave an action figure or toy in the container. The kids are going to play with it. But they could still be worth something.
"If it's loose, if it's in mint condition, you can probably get $15 to $20," he said.
Not bad for a $5 investment.
You know what else isn't bad? Owning a very cool Hot Wheels car. Condition is key, but color is crucial. A hard-to-get brightly colored car could light up your bank account. One we looked at cost 97 cents.
"But this particular color makes this worth $1,000," he said.
Even if it's out of the box, it can bring in some cash, even with a few dings.
"It's got damage as you can see it's got a little spot here--a little paint missing here--but just to find this car in this condition is worth $200-$300 depending on the day," he said.
But the hottest Hot Wheels out there is a rear-loader beach bomb. Because of a design flaw, Mattel only made five of them.
"In mint condition one car is probably worth about $1 million," he said.
One GI Joe we looked at was worth $500 today, even more than a C3PO Star Wars figure worth $300.
Even board games could be worth a pretty penny, especially if they were made in the 1960s.
"Johnny Quest--they didn't produce a lot of them," he said. "That's a $500 game to $1,000 if you can find one."
WEB EXTRA: What Toys Aren't Worth It
Some Yu-Gi-Oh cards can go for $5,000 on their own.
Chris Modica is a video game value expert. He showed off a Ducktales game that's worth $300 in its original box, though the cartridge alone is about $100.
Tony traded in a Jurassic Park game for $10 in-store credit, and he may be regretting it.
"This actually happens to be the most expensive U.S. game to date right now," Modica said. "It retailed $50 or $60—this here is about a hundred and $30."
The first thing you can do to find your values is bringing in your old toys to a vintage toy store. Or, you can go to toyworth.com, which the owners of Toy Fusion operate. It'll tell you what the toy is worth, inside and outside of the package.
