No matter your age – 1 to 99 – toys are a part of who you are.
The types of toys you played with as a kid, whether homemade in the 1930s or store-bought just last week (hey, I still buy myself toys, and I’m 58), each holds a special place in your memory, and believe it or not has helped shape the person you are today.
Yup, toys are an important aspect of the family archive, and while most of the previous blogs in this series have centered on old photographs, 35mm slides, old home movies, family photo albums and such, toys hold all sorts of important family and sentimental value – from the old ones that have been passed down to the newer ones you or your kids played with (or you still play with).
To get you on the right track, I’m gonna break this blog into a couple of sections, as follows:
• Preserving Family or Heirloom Toys
• Preserving Collectible or Valuable Toys
I will say from the start that there is significant crossover in terms of both the archival materials and the overall strategies used to preserve each of these two general categories of toys in your collection, but it still merits discussing in this way.
Now, before we get started, I just wanna to say that “play” is a HUGE component of people’s lives (see pix above), as it is the wellspring of imagination that forms during our childhood and can lead us – as adults – into all sorts of new realms of self-awareness.
Toys can even shape people’s entire destiny or career path, and I can truthfully say that because I myself have lived it – and am living it NOW (see pix below).
As mentioned, I’m not a pilot, nor am I a dealer making a living selling toys to collectors, but this single toy airplane did indeed change my life. What I am is a writer and an artist, and it is the toys I grew up with (and those I have recently purchased) that have shaped much of my current life. All that will become clear below, but here’s a hint:
Anyway, if you’re a Jane or John D. Citizen who wants to safely and archivally preserve YOUR old toys, or those of your kids / parents / grandparents / great-grandparents, or if you’re an amateur (or serious!) collector, this blog’s for you.
When you’re finished reading it go and find YOUR cool stuff and treat it right! You’ll be glad you did!
As mentioned above, whether you’re safely preserving family or heirloom toys, or you’re a serious collector with thousands (if not hundreds of thousands!) of dollars invested in whatever it is that you collect, preserving toys – old and new – comes down to just a few basic concepts:
• Use Museum-Quality Archival Materials (acid-free boxes / safe bags / archival tissues / etc.)
• Keep Things Organized and Identifiable (now, and for generations to come)
• Store Your Archivally Preserved Collections in a Safe Place (never in your attic or basement!)
As we go through the suggested procedures and materials illustrated below, please keep in mind that while I am addressing MY collections in this blog, everything I am doing to preserve my collection can be applied to YOUR OWN collection. All you need to do is select the right sized bags and boxes for your particular toys and BOOM, YOU’RE DONE!
It really is that simple.
Now that I’m thinking about it, what it really all comes down to is choosing the right archival boxes, enclosures, and cushioning materials (and a few other things here and there):
Yes, for whatever toys I’ve (YOU’VE!) got, there is most likely a perfectly sized acid-free box, an equally perfect archival bag or enclosure, and the right type of cushioning material for your particular needs. All ya gotta do is figure out what’s what, so let’s go do just that!
Preserving Family or Heirloom Toys: The “Old Stuff”
To get things started, the following series of photographs are usually set up as “before & after” shots of toys and the archival solutions to their safe long-term storage. Beneath each set of photographs are the specifics of which archival materials were used and why. For access to additional information, each photograph and description will be active links that will take you to the specific materials mentioned. It will all look something like this (only seriously, without the all the silliness suggested below):
Enclosure: Archival Baggy Bag
Box: XYZ Whatchamacallit Box
Cushioning Material: Acid-Free Stuff-o-Rama
What’s Up: general information regarding each toy, and some other interesting odds & ends associated with it
As mentioned, while the specific toys illustrated and described here may not resemble ANY of the toys YOU have in your collection, each toy is used here as a generalized example as to just HOW to store YOUR artifacts, whatever they may be.
And with that, we’re off!
Enclosure: archival Polyethylene Bags – 3½ x 5½” bag for the sailboat / 4½ x 6¼” bag for boat & box
Box: N/A
Cushioning Material: N/A
What’s Up: to get started, this small sailboat was found in the box in the photograph. My mom’s hand-written note inside the box states that “Arthur made this for me when he was a little boy – Mom.” What all this means is that my Uncle Arthur, who’s now in his 80s, made this small two-inch sailboat for my mother (now deceased) when they were both kids in the late-1930s / early-1940s. The “Mom” referred to in the note in the box is my mother’s mom, as she was the source of the information as to what this is and where it came from. The sailboat itself was stored in a safe archival polyethylene bag, and then placed back in its box to be stored in a larger polyethylene bag in order to keep them together. Neither bag is sealed closed, as such artifacts need to “breathe,” as is the case with most toys in your own collection. Later in the process this precious toy will be placed in a larger acid-free Drop Front Box along with other family treasures.
Enclosure: truck wrapped in a sheet of pre-cut Archival Tissue
Box: 5 x 7″ Black Hinged Lid Box
Cushioning Material: Shredded Archival Tissue
What’s Up: this truck, handmade in the 1930s by my grandfather, belonged to my dad. It was wrapped in a sheet of archival tissue, and then placed by itself in a perfectly-sized black hinged lid box, safely nestled in a bed of shredded archival tissue. The truck is wrapped in archival tissue (or could just as easily have been placed in a polyethylene bag) in order to keep the naturally-occuring dust that is present with any shredded paper from getting into the nooks and crannies of the toy. As long as your toys are wrapped or bagged, shredded archival tissue is often one of the BEST cushioning materials to use, especially for glass or very fragile toys.
Enclosure: toys placed in individual Polyethylene Bags
Box: 12½ x 15 x 4¼” Tan Short Top Box
Cushioning Material: crumpled sheets of pre-cut 16 x 20″ Archival Tissue
What’s Up: these handmade Christmas toys date from the 1920s-1930s, and belonged to my father – and his father before him. While very fragile, they have lasted relatively intact for over 80 years, and now it’s my turn to make ’em last the next 80! They were placed in individual polyethylene bags and then placed, along with other old Xmas decorations not shown in the photo, in a Short Top Box with crumpled sheets of archival tissue placed around and between them.
Enclosure: stuffed animal placed in an unsealed Polyethylene Bag (unsealed so it can “breathe” in storage)
Box: 5½ x 11-3/4 x 6″ Black Short Top Box
Cushioning Material: none needed, as another stuffed animal was to be added to this box
What’s Up: jumping ahead a few decades from the era of my dad’s toys (see pix above), this is “Barbar” (named after Babar the Elephant, but I couldn’t say that back when I was a toddler so he’s forever Barbar). Sure, he’s just a run-of-the-mill stuffed elephant from the late 1950s, but as one of my first and most cherished childhood toys (hey, I saved it didn’t I?) this little grey foot-long piece of pure joy is going to my grave with me, folks. ‘Nuff said! I chose the 6″ depth of the Short Top Box illustrated above as Barbar is 4″ deep and wouldn’t fit in a 3″ Drop Front Box, my usual go-to box of choice.
Enclosure: N/A, model placed as-is
Box: 15½ x 12-3/4 x 10″ Record Storage Box
Cushioning Material: crumpled sheets of pre-cut 16 x 20″ Archival Tissue
What’s Up: there is an interesting story here! My dad built one of these cool working models of a WWII-era P-51 Mustang fighter for me way back in the late-1960s / early-1970s. I loved it, but like many of our collective childhood toys – yours & mine – it “went the way of all things.” Decades later they re-issued this model and I built one for him for his birthday, the model you see here (I liked building model airplanes, and that will be important to know at the end of this blog). I inherited this model back again after my dad’s death in 2006, and am gently and safely storing it for my grandkids (if I ever have ’em).
Preserving Family or Heirloom Toys: The “New Stuff”
Enclosure: comic book in an archival 8 x 10″ 3-Ring Print Page
Box: acid-free Tan Binder-in-a-Box (also available in black)
Cushioning Material: N/A
What’s Up: remember my collection of Rat Finks (see pix toward the top of this blog)? Well here is a 3-D Rat Fink comic from the 1980’s. See, I told ya I “still like my toys.” I can safely store a whole gang of comics in this type of economical acid-free binder. Boom! ‘Nuff said, Daddy-o.
Enclosure: toy airplanes placed in individual Polyethylene Bags
Box: acid-free 16½ x 20½ x 3″ Drop Front Box (also available in tan & black)
Cushioning Material: crumpled sheets of pre-cut Archival Tissue will be placed between and around each toy
What’s Up: as mentioned, I like toy airplanes, but see the plastic multi-staged rocket on the right in this pix? An identical one was placed on my birthday cake when I turned 5 or 6. The “Space Age” was just starting back in the early 1960s, and I just LOVED that rocket (the white and blue nosecone had a spring in it and “launched” when the little white lever on the side was pulled back). I lost that original rocket in the seas of time, but found an identical example – still in its original bag – in the basement of an old out-of-the-way model shop in the middle of nowhere. Bingo! Now its a prized possession – worth about $5 bucks but priceless to me. You’ve got similar treasures, so treat ’em right!
From cheap plastic birthday cake rockets to Star Trek – not a very far leap for a kid growing up in the 1960s. This promotional still photograph of the Enterprise was found on eBay a few years back, and serves as the example of “how to archivally mat stuff” in our fully illustrated blog on Matting. Check out our blogs if there is anything YOU want to mat / mount / frame.
Enclosure: N/A, although could be placed in a Polyethylene Bag or wrapped in sheets of Archival Tissue
Box: acid-free 14-3/4 x 12-1/8 x 5″ Artifact Box
Cushioning Material: Shredded Archival Tissue
What’s Up: purchased in the last 10 years (while in my late 40s), this model of the Enterprise is totally sharp. It lights up and plays a number of recordings – “phasers on stun” / “fire photon torpedoes” / “go to warp factor seven, Mr. Sulu” – cool stuff like that.
Enclosure: View-Master viewer placed in a 7-1/8 x 10-3/8” Polyethylene Bag / reel packet in 4½ x 6¼” bag
Box: acid-free 5-3/8 x 6 x 5-3/8” Tan Hinged Lid Box
Cushioning Material: N/A
What’s Up: I’m not a big Kiss fan but I am a big 3-D collector and researcher, so I had to have this reel packet as it points to what the culture thinks is important. For storing single viewers this small Hinged Lid Box is the ticket. Reel packets in individual bags will also fit in this box. See pix below for storing multiple examples of stuff, including whatever you have in YOUR collection (which probably does NOT include Kiss View-Master reels, but you get the idea).
Enclosure: View-Master viewers placed in a 7-1/8 x 10-3/8” Polyethylene Bag / reel packet in 8 x 10″ bag
Box: acid-free 10¼ x 5½ x 4½” Tan Hinged Lid Box
Cushioning Material: N/A
What’s Up: Not a big pro wrestling fan either, but it’s an important cultural phenomenon so it’s in the collection. Again, storing “one” thing in YOUR collection might mean using this-or-that box, while storing “multiple examples” of the same thing might mean simply using a bigger box.
Preserving Collectible or Valuable Toys
There are many toys that people collect purely for “the fun of it,” while others collect as an investment as some toy prices are in the stratosphere. Below are some of the more general categories of “collectible” toys, and while you perhaps have no interest in the specific types of toys illustrated please take a moment to consider how the archival needs of each toy is being addressed, as you can apply those principles to your own stuff.
Sometimes the best archival storage solution means using a product “off label,” in other words using a particular archival box or kit that was created for a specific use and using it for something entirely different. A good example below is the 35mm Slide Storage Kit, which was designed to store 2,4oo individual 35mm slides but can also be used to store dozens upon dozens of Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars in your collection. Yup, “off label” is often the ticket, folks!
Enclosure: collectible lunchbox placed in a Polyethylene Bag
Box: 12½ x 15 x 4¼” Tan Short Top Box (two lunchboxes will fit in this box)
Cushioning Material: crumpled sheets of pre-cut 16 x 20″ Archival Tissue
What’s Up: some lunchbox prices are INSANE, often selling for hundreds if not thousands of $$$. Depicting a host of subjects, these “everyday” lunchboxes from the 1950s-1970s are now really quite collectible and sought after. If storing YOUR old lunchbox, consider placing a reusable desiccant canister in the archival box before you close it to help keep things dry, as old steel will rust.
What can I say? While I never played with either of ’em – the figures in the pix above and below were borrowed from friends – Barbie (and Ken and Skipper, etc.) and G.I. Joe dolls are also highly sought collectibles, with rare vintage examples commanding thousands of dollars. Below are two ways to archivally store them – both MIB (mint in box, as the saying goes), and loose or open.
Enclosure: Barbie, still in its original box, stored in a Polyethylene Bag, as are the open Barbie and G.I Joe dolls
Box: acid-free 11-3/4 x 15 x 3″ Drop Front Box
Cushioning Material: N/A, as the bags themselves serve as cushioning material
What’s Up: multiple examples of your Barbie or G.I. Joe dolls can fit in a single box. Got more dolls? Consider a larger box of the same design, or a number of the same-sized boxes. Here the bags themselves offer cushioning and separation between each doll.
Enclosure: Pez dispensers placed in 2 x 9½” HD Poly Envelopes (usually used for 35mm film negatives)
Box: acid-free 11-3/8 x 2 x 2-3/8” 35mm Slide Box (usually used to store 35mm slides)
Cushioning Material: N/A, as the sleeves themselves serve as cushioning material
What’s Up: yeah, Pez collectors. Do you have any idea how many vintage / rare Pez dispensers I probably threw out back in the day? You probably did too! Cheap and seemingly unimportant, now they’re worth big $$$. Again, while perhaps you don’t have any Pez dispensers in YOUR collection, the idea behind examples like this is to continually bombard you with ideas for using a host of archival materials in novel or “off label” ways to protect what you DO have!
Enclosure: Hot Wheels (or Matchbox) cars placed in individual Slide Tray Bins (8 cars will fit each Slide Box)
Box: acid-free 11-3/8 x 2 x 2-3/8” 35mm Slide Box / then placed in a full blown 35mm-2400 Slide Storage Kit
Cushioning Material: N/A, as the Slide Tray Bins keep cars from coming into contact with each other
What’s Up: do you have old Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars? Know someone who does? Illustrated above is a PERFECT example of the “off label” use of a standard archival product. This 35mm slide storage kit is a great way to store dozens of toy cars (144 to be exact!), and everything can be easily labeled for simple organization and quick retrieval.
Enclosure: Hot Wheels car, still in its original packaging, placed in an individual 4½ x 6¼” Polyethylene Bag
Box: acid-free 12½ x 7½ x 5-3/8” Black Hinged Lid Box
Cushioning Material: N/A, as the bags protect the cars from coming into contact with each other
What’s Up: if you have a collection of toy cars that are still in their packages, consider protecting each one in its own polyethylene bag and then placing them, in alternating fashion, in a correctly sized box, as illustrated above.
Enclosure: toy cap guns in my collection, each placed in a correctly sized Polyethylene Bag
Box: acid-free 16½ x 20½ x 1½” Tan Drop Front Box
Cushioning Material: N/A, as the bags protect these cap guns from coming into contact with each other
What’s Up: while researching stereotypes of Native Americans for a book I wanted to write I began collecting toy cap guns – specifically those with Indians on the handles. While that book will never happen, I still have the cap guns. As mentioned, the 3″ Drop Front Box is my usual “go-to” box, but in this instance I’m using a 1½” Drop Front. Likewise, if YOU have “thinner” toys in YOUR collection, just select this sort of box – it’s perfect for the job and available in a host of sizes.
Conclusion: Toys as a Life Influence
OK, so now it all comes together! Below is a pix of a piece of “artwork” I made for my parents when I was a kid out of a chunk of an old 2×4, and fortunately I still have this “toy,” shown on the right in a protective polyethylene bag before being carefully stored in an archival box.
1. a zipper-pull I had found someplace, stuck in a blue cap of some form or another with a ton of Elmer’s glue
2. a mini pinball game I got in some random box of Cracker Jacks
3. drawings of mom and dad (yeah, I still can’t draw, even though I ended up getting a Masters Degree in art)
4. “To mom and dad,” as scrawled in my elementary school chicken scratch (hey, it was a gift)
5. “Form Lanny,” as for years (and years!) I spelled “from” as “form” (and to think I ended up as a writer)
Now, just WHY am I mentioning all this??? Well, as I said, I ended up going to grad school in art (photography / sculpture / art history), and this is one of the ONLY surviving pieces of my early “sculpture,” so it’s worth archivally preserving!
Which brings me back full-circle to that tin airplane I described at the beginning of this blog. Before I go into linking the “sculpture” above and that old toy airplane, this is how I’m preserving that sleek and shiny relic from all those years ago:
Enclosure: each half of the plane (it comes apart) placed in a 20 x 24″ Polyethylene Bag / stairs in 4½ x 6¼ bag
Box: acid-free 28-3/4 x 17 x 6″ Textile Storage Box (did some say “off label?”)
Cushioning Material: large sheets of Archival Tissue cut off of a 36″ x 1,000 foot roll
What’s Up: I don’t need to say anything more, folks, cuz you get the idea – if you have something large and awkward, or small and delicate, there is probably a perfectly-sized box for it! ‘Nuff said.
So, an interest in making “sculptural” toys (see old chunk of 2 x 4 above) + an interest in old airplanes + the ability to build model airplanes + a crazy counter-culture attitude shaped early on by the whole concept of Rat Finks = zany ideas:
Various plastic toy airplane models I cobbled together a few years ago to make a “Frankenplane.”
The same toy airplane model cast in mirror-polished stainless steel, with solid gold propellers.
The sculpture on its custom-machined, polished aluminum base.
A “photo album,” complete with fabricated aluminum portfolio box with sandblasted aircraft rivet pattern.
Remember those snapshots from the top of this blog? Well, I’ve been collecting snapshots for years, so I finally put them together and published this large 16 x 20″ photo album (see pix above), complete with photo corners and hand-written captions in white ink (edition of 100 handmade copies worldwide). The result is a “graphic novel” on the life of the fictitious aeronautical engineer who created the designs for the Frankenplane and others like it. It’s his life story – and a narrative of everything that happened in the 20th century – told in found snapshots.
This is what I do as an artist and a writer, and it all came from that single toy airplane I got all those years ago! You bet I’m preserving it, as it’s a toy that truly shaped my life.
You have them too, I’ll wager, so do the right thing and take care of ’em!
‘Nuff said.
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