By TR Robertson
Looking for some unusual early toy purchases for Christmas gifts or November special deals? You may want to take a step back in time and check out the latest announcements from the National Toy Hall of Fame and see what they have selected as this year’s Hall of Fame recipients. For the last 25 years the Toy Hall of Fame Selection Committee has selected toys that have made a major impact on the toy industry and toys we all remember growing up with, those toys we just had to have as kids. The toys selected and many more are displayed in the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. This museum is also part of the World Video Hall of Fame Museum. The museum has just gone through a $75 million 90,000 square foot expansion.
A 22-person selection committee each year selects 12 toys as nominees for the Hall of Fame and from this list 3 are selected and some years one from a list referred to as the Forgotten 5. The 2023 Toy Hall of Fame winners were announced on the “Good Morning America” T.V. show last week. Making this year’s 2023 Hall of Fame were Cabbage Patch Kids Dolls, the Fisher Price Corn Popper, Baseball Cards and Nerf Foam Toys. The Corn Popper was from the Forgotten 5 list. The others were selected from the toys on the Finalist List. The Corn Popper was first introduced in 1957, Cabbage Patch dolls in 1968, the first Nerf foam toy the Nerf ball in 1969 and the first baseball cards produced in 1868.
Other toys on that Finalist List included the game Battleship, Bingo, Choose Your Own Adventure Books, Connect 4, Little Tykes Cozy Coupe, Slime, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ken from the Barbie collection. The Ken doll’s full name is Kenneth Sean Carson and he was introduced in 1961, two years after Barbie was produced. Barbie was selected for the Toy Hall of Fame in 1998. It has been said that Ken responded to not being selected again, “Doesn’t seem to matter what I do, I’m always number two” (from the “Barbie” movie). Many of the toys listed are still being sold in stores and many are no longer being made but have become collectors’ items in the toy world.
The 2022 Toy Hall of Fame selectees included Spinning Top, Masters of the Universe Action Figures, and Lite-Brite. Still on the Forgotten List of Toys that have been nominated for numerous years are the Pogo Stick, My Little Pony, PEZ Dispensers and Transformers. Collectors have paid large sums for many of the older classic toys at various auctions. At one auction a collectors Barbie doll sold for $302,000 and a G.I. Joe action figure sold for $200,000. Some of the most expensive collector toys have been a Masterpiece Cube Rubik’s Cube that sold for $1.5 million, and a Golden Monopoly set that sold for $2 million. Who knows, you may have some valuable toys somewhere in your home, if they are in good condition. If you go on eBay, it is amazing what some people are asking for toys like Star Wars items. Maybe this is why we always told our boys to take care of their toys, you never know what they might be worth to someone else someday.
