Meaghan Townsends Barbie Collection

Meaghan Townsends Barbie Collection

 

One of the all time greats, in the world of toys, is Barbie. If there was a queen of toys, she would certainly be it. There are countless people who collect the curvaceous icon and one of them is Meaghan Townsend. An enthusiastic collector since the age of three, she has collected well over 100 Barbies, recognizing at even that young age they might be well worth money some day.

Out of her collection she definitely has her favorite, a 50^th anniversary Barbie commemorating Marilyn Monroe. There have been several Barbies in honour of the movie legend and to collect them all is Meaghan’s goal as she is a big Marilyn Monroe fan as well. One particular doll that Meaghan says isn’t attainable in the near future is a particularly expensive edition, one created by fine jewelry designer Stephan Canturi valued at $500,000.

            Over the years her collection has continually grown and is worth roughly $5000. It looks like saving all those Barbies she received as a kid really was a good idea.



Toy Collecting in the Year 2013

By: Ashton Lambert

    I recently visited Bounty Hunter Toys, located at 118 Ottawa St. North in Hamilton, Ontario. I sat down with the store owner, Mike Heddle and was eager to ask him some questions in regards to the relationship between technology and toy collecting. When the store was founded back in June of 1995 there was no such thing as an iPod, Xbox or MacBook and because of this, collecting toys was more of a common hobby. But over the years, Mike has seen both positive and negative effects on his sales and the toy collecting industry due to the advancement of technology.” Kids are now growing up with essentially a computer in their hands” he states, with access to information on a mass scale, as well as the ability to play thousands of games with their fingertips.  Mike stated that to this day he still sees some of the same customers he did when he opened the store, but has also had people he thought would never abandon their collection, come in and sell their toys to him. Whether that is an age issue or a technological issue, only the person selling the toys truly knows. Perhaps they are simply not interested in toys anymore, or perhaps with such entertainment systems as Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, there is no desire to build on a toy collection.

 

An interesting tidbit is that while advancements are being in made in technological entertainment every day, retro toys and collectibles are still the most popular item of choice among Bounty Hunter Toys customers. As the years go, by retro toys increase in value and it seems that will never change. This is great for the toy industry as a whole as it seems no matter what kind of technological advancements come out, collectibles such as “Gears 1984 Transformers”, “Star Wars” and “G.I. Joes” don’t seem to be losing their value any time soon. A positive Mike has noticed that is related to technology and toys is that kids are playing videogames and seeing characters in these games that actually exist as a collectible toy. Kids then want to purchase the toy of the character they have seen in their favorite videogame. However, this does go both ways as some kids have simply become disinterested in collecting toys as they would rather play videogames. To summarize, it seems that the advancement of technology over the years has both positively and negatively affected the toy collecting business and only time will tell which aspect will overrule the other. One thing seems for certain though, retro is here to stay and that’s that!

 

Welcome!

Hello everyone and welcome to the Hamilton Toy Museum's Blog!
I will continue to post updates of our events to our facebook page, so be sure to "like" it to stay in the loop.

The purpose of this blog is to provide more information about THTM and the items in it's collection.  I have been posting images to the facebook gallery, but many of the items we are acquiring need a little explaination to be fully appreciated.  We have some very unique items, and can't wait to share them with you!

THTM is an incorporated charity, which means all the items (artwork, toys, etc) we own do not belong to anyone and won't end up in a private collection.  We exist to educate the public, and have held several art shows and events to do so.  Hopefully, this blog will provide some interesting information and stimulate some thoughtful discussion.

 

Enjoy

Chris

THTM