With the economy still sputtering and avid travelers everywhere always looking to stretch a buck, it seems there's little that can fatten that travel expense account quickly and easily. But as it turns out, you may have to look no further than the potential goldmine that might be gathering dust in your basement.
Yes, your parents were right: It's time to get your old toys out of their storage space. And in this case, you should quickly oblige. Let's face it: If you're an American male in your 30s, the odds are pretty high that you have a stash of Star Wars and other late 1970s and 1980s merchandize hiding away somewhere in a cardboard box in the attic. And if sales on eBay are any indicator, those old Transformers, Voltron and M.A.S.K. (forgot about that, didn't you?) toys can not only buy you a plane ticket, but a very comfortable jaunt in a strange land.
Star Wars, in particular, has met with a merchandizing success unparalleled in the industry, raking in over $20 billion. People from around the world snatched up the merchandise in the late 1970s and the '80s, so that Baby Boomers who bought Boba Fetts for their kids will now see their grandkids open Boba Fetts on Christmas Day, decades later.
If you were unlucky enough (!) as a child in the late '70s to open all your presents, your redemption is here. Unopened, original toys in their pristine cases fetch the most money, like our friend, Boba Fett, who sold in early January for more than $3,100. If bad guys weren't your thing, but you couldn't bring yourself to take an original Luke SkyWalker out of his package, you could make as much as $1,800.
But if Star Wars fever waned from time to time, or if you were just a spoiled child of the '80s with your claws into many cool Japanese cartoons and their toys (like so many were), you could clean off those old Transformers, which also garner to dollar on eBay. Like Star Wars, Transformers has spanned generations and a combination of disposable income and nostalgia has lead to sales in the thousands. While an orginal Megatron in its box can fetch almost $900, a well-loved model can still get hundreds of dollars. Also in the 1980s robot arena, a complete original Voltron figure can fetch upwards of $200.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
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