His Basement Is a Childhood Dream Come True

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: - Beneath a quiet home in Indiana, something extraordinary has been growing. - It's probably doubled in two years. - Thousands of childhood toys, spanning generations. - Don't blink, you'll miss something. - And just when you think you've seen everything. [00:00:15] Tim: - Probably a $2,000 figure at this point. - You wanna talk about things that collectors don't know about. - You know, it's like going to a toy store when I was a kid at this point. - There's always one more surprise. [00:00:28] Speaker 1: - Today I'm in Indiana visiting Tim. - Do you want me to like dance through it? - Who spent years transforming his basement into a massive tribute to the toys of his childhood and beyond. But as I'll soon discover, his collection doesn't end there. [00:00:50] Tim: - Don't blink, you'll miss something. [00:00:51] Speaker 1: - Yeah, for real. - Oh man. - Well, this is enormous. This is like maybe my favorite space that I've been in. [00:00:58] Tim: - I would say like 90% of the stuff that I have like is based on, I was obsessed with that when I was a kid. - Oh yeah. - A lot of movie stuff, a lot of cartoon stuff, a lot of TV show stuff. Stuff I was in love with for, you know, 40 years and just started amassing it. It's, you know, it's like going to a toy store when I was a kid at this point. There's a racetrack through here. Like if you start at the stairs, you can go here and wind your way around every table. I'll stop and look at stuff or I'll stop and I'll be like, okay, I need to rework this and I'll come out here and I'll take everything down and then, you know. - Wow. - I got this yesterday, WWF pennant on the stick. - Wow. - And I freaked out. I'm like, I got to have it. - Yeah, I built an entire arena for my LJNs. - So if we're talking LJN versus Hasbro, you're LJN all the way. - Yeah, I have a few Hasbro figures over there. - It's one of those things where once I finish this, willy wonty, you know. - Are we going to see the Hasbro mail away slaughter here? - Yeah. So I got a pretty, pretty clean one. Riding's good. New robes. [00:01:59] Speaker 1: - I like this stuff too. Just the American Gladiator set up like no one has. [00:02:02] Tim: - Oh, everybody's sleeping on American Gladiators. - It's so cool. - That stuff is great. - So great. - They took the steroids out of the new one. - Sure. - So it's not nearly as good. - Yeah, yeah, it's a little different. - I have a complete loose collection, a complete box and carted collection. - Wow. - I'll come through here. I'll have a wrestling match over here. [00:02:18] Speaker 1: - There is a gigantic Star Wars set up behind you. - I get really pumped. Like, they put out the-- [00:02:23] Tim: - Is that the Star, I didn't even notice the Star Tours vehicle. - It's the Star Tours vehicle. - Whoa. - It plays the whole ride. - Does it really? - It does. It has the lights and sounds of the whole ride. - So are any of this Star Wars stuff from your childhood? - Those are all my childhood figures. - Is the vintage line complete? - No, I don't care if I ever complete it. There's two Star Wars figures that I don't have. And they're like the least exciting Star Wars figures. - Awesome. - And I'm just like, yeah, like it's the A-Wing pilot and Rhomba. I'm gonna spend like $500 on those two figures. There's other stuff that I'd rather have. [00:02:53] Speaker 1: - Okay. In the corner of my eye, I saw this giant set up back there. [00:02:56] Tim: - I spent a lot of time, I actually have a chair. I have chairs throughout down here too, because I'll sit down here and like stare at stuff. But I had a chair sitting here for, while I was working on this. - Now was that something you were after? - No, I walked into a toy store and they had it, and it was a little rough. So I made a deal and brought it home. I tore it completely apart, got it looking nice. I printed out like the Toys R Us tags to go on it. - Is that the light button? - That's the sound button. - Can I press the sound button? - If you so wish. - Now we have to sit through the entire fanfare. - I don't know if we have rights to this. [00:03:38] Speaker 1: Will it go off if I press it again? - Uh, no. No, we have to sit through it. - We're gonna ride this out. - Yeah. Everywhere I look, there's something else catching my attention. And I'm realizing just how easy it would be to miss something down here. From Silverhawks and Tron, to Mask and Thundercats. There are talking dolls and even original store displays. The collection spans so many different eras and interests, it's impossible to predict what you'll find next. - You're not drinking out of this one yet? - I do, I only drink orange juice out of it. Why are you breaking my stuff already? - I always am. - I can tell you by far what my favorite piece in here is, and you probably guessed what it is. The Uncle Fester's light bulb. [00:04:15] Tim: - Oh yes, yeah, yeah. That's a tough piece to get. You have to put a piece of tinfoil on your tongue and touch your tongue to the little thing to activate the light. It's literally like a gum wrapper that they put in there. [00:04:30] Speaker 1: - Yeah, yeah. That seems like a toy that would for sure not get made today. - Yeah. - You ride this still? [00:04:44] Tim: - I do. I took it to work Friday. So I redid this. It was really rough when I got it. It sat in a hardware store and it had like overspray from spray paint. I paint stripped the whole thing and then repainted it. It's not totally original, but it looks better than one that you'll find that's original. - It looks incredible. Works perfect here, right? With Eternia. - Ular was a figure that was never released. When they closed the Top Toys production facility, they warehoused all the inventory parts and everything. And in that warehouse, they found all this old, you know, unused stock. There was these Ular figures, which is like a kind of savage He-Man. He's got like the monster legs. They like basically just like pulled the plug on the production line and he never got any paint. I went from Argentina to Ohio in a small tiny box and someone didn't know what it was. He told me to make him an offer. I said, "How about $400?" I was like, "Yeah, that sounds good." It's probably a $2,000 figure at this point. - Wow. [00:05:51] Speaker 1: One thing I've learned from visiting collections like Tim's is that there's always something out there you didn't know existed. And for me, discovering those things is half the fun of collecting. Luckily, there are more ways ever to do just that. Whatnot is one of my favorite ways to shop online because it's live. Real people selling Pokemon cards, sports cards, electronics, action figures. So much more. One of my favorite sellers, Rob's Collectibles is live right now. Let's go see what he's got. It's like going on a trip to a toy store. [00:06:19] Speaker 3: What's up, Slacker? Retro Slacker's in the house. [00:06:22] Speaker 1: I've wanted this thing for so long. All right. I got someone else bidding against me. I'm winning. [00:06:27] Speaker 3: Retro Slacker's in it. [00:06:29] Speaker 1: Oh, man. [00:06:30] Speaker 3: Retro Slacker. I won. Congrats. [00:06:34] Speaker 1: That's a crazy deal. Thirty seconds. Five seconds. Two. One. [00:06:39] Speaker 3: Retro Slacker. Oh, my God. [00:06:43] Speaker 1: Take a shopping trip on Whatnot. Use my link in the description or scan the QR code to get $25 off your first purchase anywhere in the app. I just got that Jaws game for $52, and you could get it for $27 if you sign up for Whatnot using my link. And while you're there, it doesn't hurt to support a small business like Rob's. Big thanks to Whatnot for sponsoring this video. Now, let's get back to Tim's collection. [00:07:05] Tim: Let me come through with the fantasy. All the nerds like this stuff, you know what I mean? [00:07:22] Speaker 1: Yes, they do. [00:07:23] Tim: I need two figures to complete that line. The toy lines more based on the, you know, the actual D&D game. Yeah. Right. And then in the cartoon, you had some of the D&D elements like entered into the cartoon, but it wasn't like well explained or anything because everything was focused on these kids. So they never made the kids as figures here in the US. Most of them didn't exist in the cartoon. [00:07:42] Speaker 1: Right. So what in this whole room excites you the most? [00:07:46] Tim: You. Oh. So that's the Mark's Hootenholler Haunted House. You can hit the key. It's got like these little typewriter keys on it. Oh, that's fun. And they activate a function on here. So the door will open. There's a witch that'll pop out. When did you start collecting? I started collecting video games in like the mid nineties because I could get them stupid cheap. I just had this massive collection. I filled an entire house with video games, arcade games, pinball machines. And then 2019, I sold a lot of my video game stuff. Started phasing at that point, like 2019 started really phasing into toys, which I had collected, just not to this extent. [00:08:25] Speaker 1: This whole space is from 2018, 2019? A lot of it. A lot of it. Yeah. It's probably doubled in two years. Wow. [00:08:33] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:08:34] Speaker 1: This stands out to me because I've been searching for it and I just never see it. Oh man, all the muscle stuff. Muscle is a thing that I truthfully just don't know much about. But this is one of the big pieces that people go after, the stadium. [00:08:45] Tim: Yeah, that's a Japanese piece that wasn't ever released here. The Aurora Monsters, that was like my dad's thing when I was a kid. A lot of these were his kits. [00:08:56] Speaker 1: So do you think that like your dad is probably a huge reason why this? A hundred percent. [00:09:00] Tim: My parents would go into the antique stores and I'd see like stuff from the 60s. That's awesome. Dad, can I have this? Like the biggest memory is the Mattel Herman Munster talking doll. Like I remember seeing it on a shelf in an antique store and probably like 83, 84 and like freaking out. Like I need to have that. And a lot of my collection is 60s and 80s. 60s Joes were my first GI Joes. Cool. So 82, right? I was three. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't know anything about GI Joe. But I'm sure my dad went to the store and was like, oh, they're bringing back GI Joes, but they're small. I'll give Tim, you know, these old Joes to play with. So my first introduction to GI Joe was 60s Joes and I've got a huge collection of 60s Joes over there. Okay. Are you going to go get your ET so we can start our interplanetary colony down here? [00:09:47] Speaker 1: I love all the planes hanging too. Yeah. Like, look at that. See, it puts like the little thing you're hanging. It's so fun. [00:09:54] Tim: Yeah. That's the Panther Jet. Oh, damn. It's just a blow mold plane that Erwin Toys made and it's super fragile. That was like one of my grail pieces. [00:10:03] Speaker 1: There's a little thing behind you. It's the. Yeah. It says flag. Did you ever know a kid that had that? I did. You did? [00:10:11] Tim: Yes. Were they a billionaire? They weren't. Like the kid that literally lived directly across the street from me, he had the flag. So I would literally go. I didn't like the kid, but I liked his flag. So I would go over to their house and play with him all the time. My chair for the break here towards the end. The Untouchables play set. Dude, I obsessed over that for years because I wanted it so bad. Yeah. So 61. Wow. Yeah. 61. [00:10:37] Speaker 1: Oh, is this based on the TV series? Okay. [00:10:39] Tim: Yeah. Mark's put a play set out for the kiddies of gangsters. And we've got the dead guy here. Sure. Yeah. For the children. Right. Love the Smurfs display. Another childhood piece. Oh, that's right. That's so great. Yeah. The guy that's got the Smurf display case. And my dad said, Hey, Tim's been collecting these. I'd like to get one of those cases. Right. He asked the guy, Hey, is the case for sale? And he said, well, that one's not. He's like, but I can get one and bring it out next weekend. So cool. My dad gives him back then 10 bucks, something like that. Brings it home, opens it up, pulls it out. And then there's like four other boxes inside. It's completely filled with Smurfs. So I had an instant Smurf collection when I was a kid. This has survived 40 plus years now. [00:11:26] Speaker 1: Wow. Apparently Tim's reached the point in collecting where even a cardboard box is exciting. Especially when it's the incredibly rare 1979 Alien Blaster Target set. [00:11:37] Tim: It is open. He pulled it out to check the contents. Everything's there and sealed. [00:11:41] Speaker 1: My favorite part is that we're just, we're showing off them. Right. [00:11:45] Tim: That's what I said. That's what I said. [00:11:47] Speaker 3: It's not on the other side of the screen. This is how broken. [00:11:49] Tim: I know. I was going to say, look at what we're doing right now. It is a cardboard box. A better example would be that white box sitting there. In front of the police academy. What's this? That is the mail away Captain Harris. It's an indescript white box. Me personally, I'd rather have a loose complete one. Yeah. But that's the way I got it. So why not open it and put it out? Well, because I would devalue it. [00:12:14] Speaker 1: I just found the grail of the whole collection though. And I need to show this to the camera. You missed Cleo's tarot power deck as seen on TV. Man, I remember these late at night infomercials. The infomercials? Yeah. [00:12:28] Speaker 3: Honey, I'm on my way. Yes. [00:12:30] Tim: Miss Cleo. Arco did the Bravestar guns. Oh, fun. And they made this gun, which is essentially the LJN gun. Oh, no way. So red is Bravestar, white is Robotech, and black is a V. So if you ever see them, you'll know the color, you know, what it's supposed to be, because they're always missing the sheath. What are the Fighting Furies? Probably the greatest glow in the dark toy ever made. Really? Yeah. For people that even know about the line, they see that one, that's the one they want, and they don't care about any of the other stuff. To be fair, he's awesome. Yeah, he is awesome. Because I'll come down here and take something, somebody fell. [00:13:05] Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just realized, yeah. Ghost. But if you hear that sound, you then have to go figure out what figure fell. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I've done it so many times. Is there anything in this whole space where it's like, you know no one knows about it? [00:13:18] Tim: Um, we go to Kings Island, they had the Smurf dark ride there. And when they shut it down and retooled it for whatever other thing that it became after that, they like cleaned out all the animatronics and like all the props and everything. There was a garden scene and I had a cucumber and an onion that came originally came from the dark ride. So, you want to talk about things that collectors don't know about there. There's an onion from the Smurfs. They don't know about the onion. The onion from the Smurfs dark ride. This is the deepest cut down here, right there. [00:13:50] Speaker 4: Stop this commercial! Check out the new Pogoball Blaster. It's a hot new look and a bigger bounce. Get the blast Pogoball Blaster. [00:14:00] Tim: This is a Pogoball, I guess, that they put out. So, if you don't know what Pogoballs are, they were something stupid. It's like you balance on it, right? Yeah, you balance and jump. Yeah. So many recesses did I have. Oh really? Like the Pogoballs, the kids would bring their Pogoballs to recess and like, you know, you'd like trade. Can I get, you know, five minutes on your Pogoball? I feel like the Pogoball collecting community is pretty small. So, the prices hadn't gone wild until now. Oh man, you gotta find the Pogoball only collector. So, maybe hold this until, you know, you can find, you know, some Pogoballs. How do you know all this stuff? I sit in front of my computer and read anything about toys for years. And I'd go upstairs when you guys aren't here and I'd tell my wife all about it and she's like, "That's great, Tim." [00:14:44] Speaker 1: Did she know about your toy stuff like as soon as you guys started getting together? [00:14:48] Tim: When we got together, it was video games. Do you still have like a pretty decent setup? Yeah, so like console games. I've got an entire bedroom upstairs. Is that something we can see or you don't really show it? Yeah. We can go up there and load it. You wanna check it out? [00:15:02] Speaker 4: For sure. [00:15:03] Tim: We get to go up to the 12th floor, the elevator's broken. So, this is what's left of the years of video game collecting. [00:15:12] Speaker 4: Yeah. [00:15:23] Speaker 1: Sega 3D Glasses. Got Nintendo Power over here. [00:15:27] Tim: Yeah. First 50 issues. Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They were only available in video stores as video store rentals originally. Where you could just like buy them through the video stores. You know, they weren't putting Halloween or Texas Chainsaw Massacre at Sears. You know, so. They're pretty uncommon. I'm just being incredibly humble saying it uncommon too. Because like, if those are complete in box, they're like $4,000 or $5,000 a piece now. Yeah, probably. I probably didn't pay more than $100 for either one of those. There we go. Wow. So yeah, Earthbound. It's huge. One of those games that's not rare at all and people go crazy for it because it's just supply and demand situation. You know, I think more people care about it than don't care about it in the video game collecting community. But 25 years ago, you could pick it up pretty easily. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out was my favorite game when I was a kid. I like played Mike Tyson's Punch-Out for hours every day for several years. [00:16:25] Speaker 1: Out of all these, it would, for me, it would be Star Fox. You know, I never got into Zelda's. I never played the Ocarina. Never played it. Probably shouldn't put that on the internet. Can I talk about how much I hate the N64? Yeah. Do, yeah. [00:16:37] Tim: It's all sports games. It's all racing games. Probably 10 games on the entire console that are worth playing. [00:16:43] Speaker 1: What is a Vectrex? [00:16:45] Tim: Vectrex is the only vector-based console that has ever been put out as, you know, like a retail console. A lot of early arcade games were on vector monitors. [00:16:57] Speaker 1: Okay, yeah. There's a little carrying case for it? [00:16:59] Tim: Yeah, so that was a mail-away carrying case. And then inside is the mail-away dust cover. The mail-away dust cover? [00:17:05] Speaker 1: Yeah. That sound is amazing. [00:17:08] Tim: Yeah. I was videotaping myself playing and submitting it to Twin Galaxies and getting on their scoreboards. Oh my god. [00:17:16] Speaker 1: So at one point, I think I had a high score on like half of all the Vectrex games. Tim's passion for vintage toys and retro gaming goes well beyond his own collection. He's also the showrunner of Hoosier Collecticon, a vintage-only toy and collectible show right here in Indiana. How did you make the decision to start doing a toy show? Was it like selfishly? You're like, oh, now I have a lot of toys come to me. [00:17:38] Tim: 100% selfish. You know, I met Anthony Froggy Flips, talked about, hey, you know, let's work together and try and bring something to here. You know, there's vintage heavy shows, but then you still have your modern. And it was a pretty good response. It really kind of hit home with a lot of people and it's been really successful so far. Well, it's funny. My dad was down here while we were doing the setup for the show and everything. And he came down here and he had, he'd bought some 60s Joes and he was down here sitting in that chair playing with them and going through my, cause I've got a bunch of footlockers with accessories down here. Yeah. And he was like pulling stuff out my footlockers to try and complete some stuff. Dude, that's amazing that you still, you have that with your dad. I'm an only child. Yeah. He was an only child. Yeah. So like once I hit adulthood, we were just like, you know, like we clicked cause we really understand that mindset. Yeah. Yeah. So it's become the collection is what I'm obsessed with more so than the individual parts. [00:18:37] Speaker 1: After years of toy hunting, Tim is getting close to having everything he set out to collect. I think a lot of us are still chasing that feeling of walking into a toy store as a kid, surrounded by everything we could ever want and walking around Tim's basement. I'd say he's come pretty close to bringing that feeling home.