Divesting my childhood (Part 1)

One childhood bin of many

When cutting ties with my childhood, I procrastinated for years. The boxes in my parents’ basement bothered no one. The assumption of an estate sale in the far future kept from delving into them. Why divest when things from the past have a climate-controlled space to their own?  I had no space for those boxes, and would only sell them off

Then the call came. My parents were moving, needed to cut whatever weight they could from a moving truck estimate and I needed to move out all my childhood toys and comics. Knowing their value or lack thereof, I left the baseball cards to them. Those years of set-collecting only amounted to  useless cardboard. We lacked the high-value cards from my father’s days of collecting. Worse, we quit the market as more trading card companies moved from basic sets to glossy, premium cards, when the 50-cent, 15-card pack went away, $3 for six cards became normal. In retrospect, that wasn’t a bad decision.

Full disclosure: Not everything came from my childhood. Plenty of the toys came from an early- 20s binge on next-generation Star Wars figures and comics. Lacking steady girlfriends, I had time on my hands, which I spent in a manner almost certainly to repel women – collecting action figures and comics.

On a July morning I arrived to take stock of my childhood toys. I could trace the origin of every toy. The Cobra Rattler came during Christmas 1985. The playset depicting Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer was a marked-down bargain at a department store in Macon, Georgia. My mom or I purchased many of my Star Wars toys after the line ended, when stores dumped figures, vehicles and playsets for drastically reduced prices.

The comic book boxes were filled over years through a long-seeded desire to complete a collection of Incredible Hulk comics – aside from the original six, I had roughly 40 years of continuity in a few boxes. It only took a few years to tie together the stories that spanned back to the mid 1960s.

I hunted judiciously across Central Ohio; every book was bought in a store. Nothing came through the Internet. I finished a GI Joe collection in the early 2000s. before 1980s nostalgia took hold and prices of the rarer comics took hold. The other comics were no less noteworthy. I had incomplete collections of Marvel Star Wars, most bought for a $1 or less in the early 1990s when saga was at its lowest point in the public consciousness.

Other key issues filled out my lot – the first fights of Wolverine and Sabretooth, some 1960s Batman comics, the Iron Man alcoholism issues and so on. I had a well-rounded collection. Every book received a plastic bag and a backing board, so all were well maintained in their years of storage.

Percy thought this was his inheritance.

Nostalgia played little role here. I knew what remained in the basement because I had not sold anything. I could not feel sentimental for plastic toys had not touched any of it in years. Arguing for keeping it all felt futile. Most of the toys had been boxed in 1998, two houses ago. The comics had moved from Columbus to Atlanta. I barely touched any of them in the interim. Putting them into other hands felt like the best solution. I had no space for this volume of comics and toys, nor did I have any inclination to keep it all.

A year earlier, I tested the waters of selling my collectibles. I sold my Incredible Hulk 181 (the first full-issue appearance of Wolverine), followed by a sale of boxed yet almost-worthless modern Star Wars toys. I never felt the store in question ripped me off. They had to make money, and I needed to rid myself of those items. The time in which they sat in a box or drawer had ended. Let someone else gain pleasure from them.

With great surprise, I discovered almost everything remained intact. Granted, it took hours to sort parts and place every random missile, antennae and wing with the proper toy. After hundreds of imaginary missions and battles several decades ago, I knew exactly where everything went.

When a plane lacked an engine mount, I dug into a pile of parts and emerged with a gray rotor. I reassembled snowspeeders, Yoda’s home on Dagobah, swamp smashers, recon sleds, helicopters, tanks, ,cloud cars and every vehicle not broken into pieces. Darth Vader's Star Destroyer came back to life in short order. My original X-Wing fighter had seen better days. Yet all the pieces remained, as well as the box of a later reissue I found at a discount store for $5. From the Star Wars world, we had playsets, starfighters and the occasional hairy beast. GI Joe vehicles and a few odd Masters of the Universe vehicles rounded out the bins.

A child dropped into this setting could have had days of battles to plan across the skies and landscapes from deserts to tundra. Only one thing was untouchable – my Kenner Star Wars figures. The C-3PO carrying case and the Jabba the Hutt set would not join any sale. Maybe I thought they would be worth something in the future. Or maybe I could not commit to giving them up. Regardless, I would not sell them off.

In the basement of my parents' house, I finished reassembling then boxes the toys. Four long boxes of comics, five short boxes and several loads of toys completely filled the rear of my Scion. Had the right robber come along when I stopped between Atlanta and Nashville, they might have found a bonanza of 1980s nostalgia. Some collections remained - I had no room for a massive bin of GI Joe figures, Masters of the Universe or a handful of Transformers.

The buyer told me he'd never seen this set complete before.

However, I was not nostalgic anymore. Within two weeks, I brought two carloads of toys and comics to a local shop that traded in those wares. I got a fair price. Sure, I could have gotten more if I took nine months to sell off everything on eBay, squeezing every last dime from those items. But I did not. Same goes for the comics. I got way more than I expected. More to the point, they took everything - not a comic or toy that I brought into the store remained with me.

Except one. As I checked in my order, the Rebel Transport glared at me until I told the clerk, “I’m having cold feet about this one. I am going to keep it.” He didn’t question my choice, nor did he know my history with the Rebel Transport. In a spaceship shell, it was part playset and part carry case. It topped few kids’ list of exciting Star Wars toys.

 I always liked the Rebel Transport, because it was never replicated in any subsequent Star Wars release. This piece came straight out of 1982 and looked quite well after 32 years and 17 years in storage. Now it sits in my closet, collecting less dust than in the past. In time, it might become part of a new collection. Well, probably not. The transport is too big to serve as anything but a centerpiece. For modern kids, it’s too boring to do anything but collect dust.

Only this made the cut.

It might not have sat long at the store where I sold everything. For records and new comics I stop weekly at the store. Acquaintance with their toy and comics buyers gave me comfort in selling there. Days after the sale, I noticed some of my items made it onto the walls and into glass cases. With most toys, I guessed accurately the price at which the store would sell them. I did my research.

It has been strange to see toys where I staged hundreds of hours of battles and missions lining the walls. No matter who buys those old toys, I can bet the new buyers won’t let their imaginations run quite as wild as mine had decades ago.