America's Toy Scout scours U.S. for vintage toys
NAPERVILLE, Ill. (WLS) -- Don't throw away those old toys in the basement -- they just might be worth some cold hard cash.
If you've raised kids, you probably have toys left in the attic or the basement: vintage toys you just can't buy anymore, old toys covered with dust and filled with memories. Until Thursday, August 14, at the Courtyard Inn in Naperville, old toys equal cash.
"I'm here to get everyone to dig out their attics and closets and bring me their old toys," said Joel Magee, known as America's Toy Scout. "And what I do is I restore them and get them back out to collectors."
Magee travels the country buying up old toys from the 1800's up to the 1970's. This week he'll be in Chicago's western suburbs. Some toys are easy to part with, some are not.
It's all done on a handshake so it's not a complicated transaction. For Mary Jane and Ken Totosz, it's saying goodbye to their now 44-year-old son's toy trucks.
"I guess he was, what, between eight and ten when he was playing with these?" said Ken Totosz. "They've been around a long time."
A long time and a big difference in how kids play.
"The difference is they played with toys: the Tonka toys, the Matchbox cars. They had race sets, they had friends over. They would race together. Today everything is computerized to tablets," said Mary Jane.
This Smith and Miller Hook and Ladder from the late 1940's is now worth $250. Then it sold for $4, and, guess what? It was too expensive.
