Collectively Speaking

As a teacher of Introduction to Toy Design at Otis College of Art and Design, Stefanie Eskander has several good reasons to collect toys. There is nothing like visual aids in the classroom to enhance teaching, she tells Playthings.

But it wasn't teaching that fired her toy-collecting passion; it wasn't even a successful career as a toy designer for some of the biggest names in the business, like Mattel, Hasbro, Fisher-Price and Tonka, to name a few.

The infatuation started quite by chance, after she'd been in the biz for a few years.

“I was living in Rhode Island and working for Hasbro when I came upon a cache of old toys by chance,” she says. “My husband was friends with a man who owned a self-storage business and was in the process of selling storage items of people who had defaulted on their payments,” Eskander explains. “We were able to obtain a few wonderful abandoned toys,” she quips.

Among the games and toys were two Keystone play sets and a L'il Abner Dogpatch Band by Marx. “Although none of these toys was in mint condition, I fell in love with them, and thus began the eternal quest for the unique and inexpensive find,” Eskander confesses. She was hooked.

And being in the business has only made collecting all the easier. It has “enhanced my desire and ability to collect toys, simply because so many of my friends also were collectors, and they didn't think I was a crazy person! We would share secret sources, and fuel each other's obsessions by giving each other toys that would fit into our collections. I also had that collector's passion to replace all the toys and books I had as a child,” Eskander says, although she admits money—or the lack of it—has determined some of her choices.

“Since the finest antique toys have always been out of my price range, I found categories to collect that were inexpensive and less desirable. It was for that reason that I began to collect what I call 'girl's role-play toys,' namely ironing boards, dishes, pressed metal china cabinets, kitchen appliances, carpet sweepers.”

From there, Eskander tells Playthings, she moved into educational and school toys and books, and accumulated her largest collection: school books of the '40s and '50s and early '60s.

“I have around 350 elementary school books. I love the illustrations first and foremost, but the books are a window into that magical world when life was simple.” As an illustrator and designer, Eskander attributes the illustrations in her books with influencing her work. “I like to think that my collection has made me more aware of the universality of play—that little girls in the '40s loved their dolls, loved to play house and school and dress up, just like little girls today. And little boys still love cars, and building and war.”

She says that as a designer, she aspires to designing toys for little girls that will be loved and remembered. “It's so rewarding to hear a young person mention loving a toy or doll that I designed years ago. That makes it all worthwhile! Ultimately, my design goals are to reach an emotional connection with the child, rather than to design or invent the next blockbuster toy.”

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