by R. Renee Bembry

Created on: July 26, 2009

In order to start collecting toys you must find toys you want to collect and then frequent the avenue that led you to the toy in order to add affiliated toys to your collection. In other words, if you acquired a toy at a hobby shop and you noticed the shop had a line of toys to go with the one you bought, go back to the hobby shop now and then to buy more toys. Likewise, if you acquire a toy from a cereal box and decide to collect its "family" of

cereal box toys, buy that kind of cereal again. Depending on how much the toys you decide to collect cost, and how much of your finances you can allow for toy collecting, you may be able to add a toy a week or a toy a month to your collection.

Once you start collecting toys a good way to increase your collection quickly is to ask family and friends to give you toys affiliated with your collection as birthday gifts and as gifts for other celebratory events. If they are unsure of which toy to get you can tell them an exact toy you want or ask them to give you a gift card. Their compliance will reduce the expenses you must allocate to your collection and help grow your collection at the same time.

Another thing to do when you start collecting toys is research. Research will enable you to discover fun facts about your toy collection. Researching your toys will also help you find items you were unaware of and will allow you to figure out if you have chosen to collect toys that are valuable to others. This information is important to have in case you decide to cease collecting your toy line one day - and in fact decide to give it away or to sell it. Before disposing of a toy collection you should find out its worth so you will know exactly what you are "really" disposing of.

When you start your collection you should also start buying or making display cases and or shelves. Displaying your toys will allow you to admire them at your whims. Displaying your toy collection will also permit others to enjoy your efforts. Furthermore, displayed toy collections make great conversation pieces that can come in pretty handy when guest arrive in your home for the first time and you're searching for something to talk about.

If you are starting a toy collection in efforts to bind with a child it's a good idea to duplicate toys you buy - or at least some of them - in order to allow the child to play with some of the toys if he or she wants to. Most children will find it difficult to have a bunch of Harry Potter figures or Beanie Babies animals that they cannot actually have fun with if they cannot use them for playing. Although displaying toys and enjoying them by looking at them and discussing them with others is fine for most adults, from a child's perspective, having fun with toys means actually playing with them.

Whether collecting some sort of figurines, plush toys, or even collecting marbles, the most important thing to do when you start collecting toys is aim to collect toys you enjoy and then proceed to have fun with your collection.

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