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mac-lc-dude-blog · 7 years ago

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Selling the Toys

First and foremost, welcome to this random collection of thoughts. You can refer to me as the Mac Dude; I am a longtime user of the platform and have been known by any variation of that nickname for many years.

I had today off from work. Normally, in the middle of August, we use these days to go on vacation, but since my large-scale vacation already occurred, my off day was spent clearing out items from my mother’s house.

It has been many years since I lived there, yet a good deal of what remains belongs to me. With my mother wanting to downsize and my wallet looking for a few incoming dollar bills, my goal was simple: find things to sell on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or other similar sites.

What I had forgotten about was just how many items I could list for sale. When I moved out, I took what I needed to live with me and even brought a few frivolities and childhood memories along.

One such toy is a special edition Power Rangers action figure from 1995, released alongside the first movie. This figure is of Billy, the blue ranger, known best as the brainy member of the team. Billy was always a positive role model as a character, showing that a brilliant student can also be athletic and well-liked, not to mention a valuable team player. This particular Billy figure is one which can be “morphed” from human to Power Ranger with the touch of a button (which flips the figure’s head) and, as a limited edition figure, is a special metallic blue.

Most children who watch Power Rangers and collect toys, however, have more than one figure. After all, the Power Rangers team consists of six members. Sometimes, they even change their suit color during the season. They also get big robotic vehicles to drive and fight various bad guys. This means only one thing: tons of toys become available.

I didn’t realize just how many of these things I had until today. There were seven full-size giant vehicles (called “zords” on the show), several sets of rangers themselves, and even a few villains.

They had also been packed away for two decades.

The box containing the figures even was marked with my fourth grade handwriting, which had been penned with a magic marker.

As if that weren’t bad enough, there was a second box in the attic. This box was left over from a move made in third grade and housed a large playset resembling the headquarters of the Power Rangers. A complete set of Happy Meal toys from the Power Rangers movie promotion was inside, as was the set of small zords (all six of them!) sold separately at McDonald’s. There was also an eighth full size zord inside.

Within an hour of posting, they had been sold. I repacked them, this time in better material, to be sent off to their new owner. As I examined them one last time, I thought back to how often I played with these toys.

Most of the toys, still stored in their original boxes, looked unusually good for their age and could have passed for new.

There were a few more worn toys, but the overwhelming majority were in such good condition that the sale posts received many responses in a short period of time. While this was beneficial to someone looking for an extra dollar or two many years later, what about the past 21-22 years? Exactly *what* have those seldom-used toys done for me in that time span, even excluding the 20 years in storage?

Let’s make a list of what those toys didn’t do before we proceed. They didn’t get played with, first of all. They didn’t help me strengthen any friendships, learn anything new, or lead me to some moment of enlightenment. Despite the action features of some of the toys, I didn’t actually become a martial artist as a result of owning or playing with the toys. The transformative nature of the zords was neat, but it wasn’t as though there was a puzzle to be solved; all of the transformations were shown daily on the TV show.

The toys did offer a bit of imaginative play, but only when being played with. Simply sitting on the toy box made them glorified decorations. I do have a few decorations at my place even today, but none of them were actually intended to be anything more than a decoration.

The toys’ biggest contribution since being stashed away in 1997, after I had gone several months without even watching Power Rangers, was to provide me with a little extra cash today.

None of this has to do with the toys themselves. Some of the Power Rangers, specifically the ones with flip heads, were indeed well-loved. The Billy figure mentioned earlier looks good to an untrained eye, but only because I was gentle with my toys. It was, along with a few others, used quite a bit, as any action figure in the hands of a third grader should be.

I am not yet a parent. While I try to avoid criticizing the parenting techniques of my own parents, grandparents, and extended family, I do have to question the purchase of large quantities of Power Rangers figures. These, of course, were found alongside other toys under Christmas trees and at birthday parties. Yes, it always seems nice to buy the huge zord set to go along with the set of rangers, but were multiple zords really needed? Yes, the rangers did change zords from time to time on the show, arguably to drive toy sales, but why bother getting all six from the new set? Is it really necessary to form the mega-ultra-falconzord every time one plays with the figures? Why not let the underrated mastodon zord work alone for a change of pace? After all, it comes as part of a set of five! Are new villains always necessary? They were made of random objects on the show, why not build new, imaginative ones from Legos?

The new owner of most of my Power Rangers is an action figure collector. He’s about my age and not someone who will actually play with these things as intended. This is to be expected from an action figure aficionado who has reached a certain age. It’s not, however, the intent for most children, especially when these things are presented as toys.

Note how I said “most” of my Power Rangers. The metallic Billy was kept, along with a full set of non-metallic flip-heads, a pink Zeo ranger, a small blue ranger figure, and a Lord Zedd--if you’re going to keep one bad guy, keep the baddest of the bad guys. This way, when I am a parent someday, I can introduce my children to my old favorite show. Note, too, that the figures I kept were the ones that actually got a lot of use as toys, not as exhibits on the toy box shelf.

Children drift away from interests over time, especially when they tire of something which always goes to a certain script. Most episodes of Power Rangers do follow the same general format. The trouble with a Power Rangers toy is that it’s relatively fixed. It’s a Power Ranger--not a Starting Lineup baseball player, a Star Wars figure, or a GI Joe. When your interest shifts from a fantasy TV show with over exaggerated fighting to real sports, the action figures get set aside, maybe coming out many years later in a burst of nostalgia or because a figure of a person happens to be needed for a physics demonstration.

Other “toys” in my life at the time were spared due to their adaptability. Crayons can draw a Power Ranger, a baseball player, or a diagram of a double helix. If Math Rabbit gets outgrown on a computer, Math Blaster can replace it. Legos can be used to construct almost anything. As the Power Rangers made their way to the storage closet, the crayons, computer, and Legos soldiered on.

In the end, I got a little money from the unused toys, enough to get me to next Thursday’s Pirates game with some left to spare. That game will be an experience to cherish regardless of the outcome, as it is the annual faith night.

Now, let’s think about this: how much did these toys cost, which were purchased solely for the sake of buying toys and getting me into the habit of asking for them because it was all I knew? As I recall, the large zords often retailed around $40-$50. Let’s go with $50 because it’s an easy number to work with. A complete set of Power Rangers Zeo zords, of which there were six, would cost approximately $300 at that rate. What could $300 have purchased in 1996, the year the show aired, that would have been a better investment?

$300 would have been good for a pass to the local zoo, museum, history center, science center, aviary, and amusement park--with more than enough left over for a ticket to a baseball game. That’s seven great experiences right there, all for less than the cost of six dust collecting toys.

$300 would have purchased a few nights worth of stays at a decent hotel in 1996, enough to cover a weekend somewhere with an experience or two and a accommodations at a Hampton Inn with an indoor pool.

$300 is still more than enough, even in 2017, to cover several lessons in art, music, dance, swimming, sailing, or a sport. Imagine learning to sail or golf at nine-going-on-ten, sports which can be practiced at all ages.

In any of these cases, there would still be enough left over to buy a few small action figures. Jason and Billy versus Lord Zedd on the couch, costing only about $25 for all three? Well, as children, we do need to take time to play with toys and use our imagination...especially if only two of a six-person team show up and no giant zords are available! That, alone, could lead to a better problem solving situation, yet another case of making play a moment to build critical skills used later in life.

The buyer of my Power Rangers asked me if it was going to be difficult to part with a large collection. The only regret I have is not speaking up more as a child and asking for that trip out west in place of a full set of zords. In the end, I would have been just as happy with a handful of flip-head Power Rangers, but happier in the end because of the stories I’d remember for the rest of my life.

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