Collectively Speaking

Likely, there are not too many people who can pinpoint the exact moment they became a serious collector. One exception, however, just might be Todd McFarlane, whose collecting career probably spans some three decades.

The moment? When he saw his first Hot Wheels vehicle.

“I just loved those little cars the minute I saw them,” he told us earlier this year during a visit to his Tempe, Ariz. office. “We didn't have anything like them in Canada. So we'd get them down here and when we'd go back home, my brothers and I would be hot stuff,” he laughed.

While McFarlane's penchant for collecting baseball memorabilia is widely known both in and out of the toy industry, his affection for Hot Wheels may not be.

And, apparently, it's an affection that is ongoing, as evidenced by his collection of the mini-vehicles—both in and out of the box. “I'll even take a car without a wheel on it,” he quips during a recent interview.

McFarlane loves the fact that he's a longtime collector, jokingly attributing his passion to arrested development. “I mean, if you don't keep a bit of your boyishness, what's the sense?” he asks rhetorically. “Even as a 43-year old, part of me is still an 8-year old,” he admits.

McFarlane says that for him, there is great pleasure in finding a toy and feeling like he did when he was 12, noting that some people just don't get it. “I would venture a guess that they are the same people who won't go on a roller coaster,” he suggests.

Although he has probably been collecting Hot Wheels the longest McFarlane says he dabbled around in his toy collecting habits through the years. “I went from category to category a bit,” he tells Playthings, “and shifted to action figures to slot cars to model kits.”

And he's not about to part with anything any time soon; in spite of the fact that his collection is probably worth a small fortune by now. The ties to his collection are strictly emotional.

“Given that I haven't sold anything, it can't be monetary [being a collector]. There is just something about having what I had when I was a kid. Collecting is on an emotional level. It's really no different than looking at a photo album. It puts you in a place you remember and what life was like then,” he explains.

McFarlane believes that the “coolest” toys are from before what he refers to as the “predominance of the lawyer era,” back to about 1945.

“A lot of the materials back then used for toys were steel and diecast. They held up better. They don't make some of these toys anymore—including some like cooking ovens—because some lawyer came in and took them off the market,” he exclaims, adding that there are very few toys today “other than slot cars and trains that you can plug in.”

He adds, “I think they had a wider berth back then when they could be a little crazier!”

Although, McFarlane continues, “There is probably a greater variety now. Take Spider-Man. You can get a whole variety of toys from just one license. Licensing wasn't as big a deal back then, like it is now.”

As for licensed toys, McFarlane thinks these will likely be the must-haves of the future.

Giving Star Wars memorabilia as an example, he said people who missed the boat by not buying the product the first time around are probably looking for it now.

“Man! The first Superman and the first Batman—I wish I had them. They predate my birth,” he exclaims.

When something makes it big, people usually will say, “Wow! Who would have thought? And then they want it,” he adds.

His own collecting aside, McFarlane is quite pleased there is a “secondary market,” as he puts it.

“We do sell to an older demographic as well as to kids,” he explains, and some of the collector pieces become hard to find after awhile. “I do need that secondary market!”

Are you an avid collector of toys and have a story to be told? Please e-mail Maria Weiskott at: mweiskott@reedbusiness.com.