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    Learn More About Vintage Toys

    Collecting vintage toys is a fun exercise in tracking down rare pieces and recording history, plus it’s tons of fun. Vintage toys are magical collector’s items, bridging a gap from past to present, and contributing to a sense of wonder for kids and parents alike.


    A great gift choice for kids and grownups alike, vintage toys and games showcase one-of-a-kind designs, interesting features you don’t see any more today, and a glimpse into the culture and technologies available at the time. These timeless toys continue to bring fun for many years to come.


    Giving a child retro toys from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, or ‘90s lets them experience the excitement that previous generations enjoyed so much. Vintage toys make fantastic presents for adults as well as children, leading them down a beloved memory lane accompanied by a nostalgic item from the past. The craftsmanship and incredible detail of vintage toys contributes to a lifetime of durability, meaning vintage toys can continue to be handed down from generation to generation.

    Growing up during the latter half of the 20th century, kids enjoyed toy trends catered toward their likes and interests, with toy companies advertising on radio and TV for cool action figures, dress-up dolls, and cuddly plushies. These toys were designed to entrance and intrigue, and headline birthday and Christmas lists by kids everywhere. Check out some of these popular toys from each decade:


    • Vintage ‘90s toys were filled with attitude and embodied the “radical” factor. Electronics to alter your voice for pranks, slime and ooze for making mutants, and action figures that took out bad guys while doing extreme sports ruled playtime with high fives and backwards hats. Home computers and the internet were just becoming a thing, and toys of the ‘90s often attempted some sort of connectivity for a futuristic vibe.
    • Vintage ‘80s toys were inspired by economic optimism and technological exploration influenced by the first computer-powered entertainment systems. Science fiction became solidly established as a larger mainstream genre, sparking a boom of space war themed toys where the good guys always got the bad guys.
    • Vintage ‘70s toys saw a transformation in this decade, moving away from wood and metals for kids’ toys and embracing the quick and easy manufacture of plastic. Board games became more interactive and physical, pitting friends and siblings against each other in challenges of speed and dexterity. Video games were little more than blinking lights and big buttons, but enraptured all the same. Construction toy and chemistry sets saw a resurgence of popularity, as well as functional toys mimicking miniature ways adults spent their time like baking and knitting.
    • Vintage ‘60’s toys walked the line between classic childhood and the evolution of childhood interests. With popular culture captured by cowboy westerns, changing fashions and gender ideals, and space exploration, toy train sets, race cars, and tea party sets with real cups and teapots made great play pieces, as did open ended art sets, super-powered heroes, and rockets you could set off in your backyard.

    The wide range of vintage toys covers almost any interest and design a kid (or former kid) could dream up. For a more complete collection, vintage toy collectors often look for toys of different types to group together for display. Check out some of the more popular types of vintage toys offered by expert toy collectors on Etsy:


    • Vintage tinker toys are made of real wooden pieces and provide endless hours of fun. Build different structures, from single log cabins to whole frontier town main streets itching for a shootout at high noon.
    • Vintage robot toys have gears that move, rayguns that spark, and voice boxes that speak. They were designed with such imaginative detail that children half expected them to come to life—and often wished they would.
    • Vintage toy cars were often hand made to be exact miniature replicas of the real thing by expert toymakers at the top of their craft.
    • Vintage toy trucks stand up to endless hours of play in mud, rocks, and dirt, and sometimes survive being blown up by firecrackers.
    • Vintage dolls embody fashion, provide companionship, and sometimes showcase realistic features like closing eyes or the apparent ability to eat and drink, making it easy for little imaginations to bring them to life and give them love.
    • Vintage wind up toys were once a fascination of mechanical marvel, letting toy dogs walk, toy motorcycles zoom across the floor, and toy soldiers make realistic artillery sounds. Wind up toys remain popular today as souvenirs and party favors, but those from past decades feature distinct charm of tin construction and hand painted details.
    • Vintage dinosaur toys emerge straight from the mists of ancient Earth and into the imagination of kids everywhere. These toys run the gamut from terrifying monsters to friendly lizards and proto-birds. Dino toys are made to entertain and educate, introducing kids to archaeological excavation and the similarities and differences of the extinct species’ bone structures found in fossils to animals of today.