For the seller

Are old toys worth anything?

Assorted vintage toys on a table

Some old toys are seriously collected and a few are famous for it; most are worth less than their owners hope. Age alone decides nothing. What matters is the maker and the line, whether it is complete, whether the box survived, and whether the toy was kept or played to pieces. And the ones people expect least are often the ones collectors want most.

Old toys come out of attics in bulk: a childhood, a parent's childhood, sometimes three generations in one set of boxes. Before any of it is sorted, cleaned or given away, it is worth knowing how collectors actually look at it.

What makes an old toy collected

The maker and the line. Tin toys from the German and Japanese makers, the great die-cast names, early Barbie and her wardrobe, first-series Transformers, the space toys of the fifties and sixties: within every era a handful of names carry the interest, and the markings on the toy tell you which one you have.

Completeness. The small parts make the toy: the missile that fired, the tin key, the doll's original shoes. A parts bag somewhere in the house can matter more than it looks.

The box. For many old toys the box is rarer than the toy, because every box was meant to be thrown away. Keep every one, torn and flattened included.

Condition, honestly read. Play wear is normal and collectors expect it. What hurts more is damage from storage: rust on tin, melted plastic against plastic, sun-faded colour, and sticky decay on soft parts.

The decade. Interest moves with the people who were children then. The seventies, eighties and nineties are collected hard right now, by the people who grew up in them.

What is usually worth little

Mass-market toys that survived in millions, incomplete board games, worn plush without tags or provenance, and most toys from the last twenty years. There are exceptions in every group, which is why the markings matter more than the category, and why nothing should be thrown away unseen.

Before you sell, or clean, anything

  • Do not clean or restore. Washing, repainting and polishing lower the interest far more often than they raise it. Dust is fine.
  • Do not throw away boxes, paperwork or the parts bag.
  • Do not separate the best pieces. A collection with its heart taken out is a box of leftovers, and it cannot be undone.
  • Photograph everything as it stands before sorting begins.

The clusters with their own guide

Some kinds of toy are fields of their own: action figures, vintage Star Wars, Hot Wheels, Matchbox and diecast, Lego and designer toys. Each guide goes deeper into what collectors of that field look for.

If it is a whole attic

Working out one toy is an evening; working out an attic is a season. We buy toy collections whole, the famous pieces and the ordinary ones together, and everything is sold on as the collector's pieces they are, never as toys to be played back to pieces. The story of who collected them, or whose childhood they were, is recorded and travels with every piece, with the name on it. If the collection came out of an estate, read inherited a collection first; and wherever the attic is, we come to it when it is worth the journey.

Short answers

Which old toys are worth the most?

Complete, boxed examples of the lines collectors chase: early tin, first-series figures, early Barbie, the space toys, and the childhood lines of whoever is forty now.

Should old toys be cleaned before selling?

No. Leave them exactly as they are, dust included.

Do you buy single toys?

No, only collections: roughly twenty objects and up, or fewer if they are exceptional.

Why we keep the story

A collection is not a pile of objects.

It is years of somebody deciding what was worth keeping, and sold off piece by piece that is the first thing to go. So before anything is sold, we sit down with you and record it: how it started, what the best of it was, the piece that got away. That story stays on every object with the collector's name, and goes with it to whoever keeps it next. You get a page where you can see where each piece ended up.

Three ways the story gets recorded

On camera, where it lives. We travel to the collection and film it properly: you talking about how it started, the room and the shelves as they are, the objects in your hands. Wherever in the world the collection happens to be.

On a call. If the collection is sent to us rather than collected, we have the same conversation over a video call and write it up, with one photograph of the shelf as it stood.

In writing. If you would rather not talk at all, answer a handful of questions in your own time and in your own words. It goes on the objects exactly as you wrote it.

It never changes anything else, and you can always say no to it. Some conversations run ten minutes, some an afternoon. Read the collections we have taken on

If it is a whole collection

We buy whole collections, not single pieces: one person takes all of it, and the story is kept with every object. Tell us what you have and a person replies within two days.

How passing it on works, in full

1The collection
What is in it
Pick everything that applies. Something else opens a line to tell us.
Roughly how many pieces
A guess is fine. Nobody has counted.
How would you describe it
There is no wrong answer here, and a lot of ordinary is a normal collection.
One or two sentences. This is the question we care about most.
2Where it is, and how it could reach us
Town and country is enough.
How could it reach us
Unseend is in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Sending and bringing are as welcome as a visit; if it is sent, we pay the freight and insure it.
When does it need to be gone
No hurry is a good answer. It lets us plan a visit properly.
3Condition and photographs
In your own words. Broken, incomplete or untested is fine and is normal; it only needs saying.
Photographs
Three to ten photographs The room and the shelves as they stand. Phone photographs are fine, and a slow walk round on video says more than any of them.Send them to hello@unseend.com
Or attach them to the reply that comes back within two days. Any of them works, and nothing is looked at until a person reads it. Do not clean up first — the shelves as they stand tell us more than a tidy arrangement.
4The number, and the story
A number or a range, whatever you have in mind. You will get an honest answer either way.
Would you tell the story of it
Filmed at the collection wherever it is, on a video call, or written in your own time. It never changes the price.
5How to reach you
The reply comes here, from a person, within two days.
Only if you would rather be called.

Answered within two days, by the person who would come, and by email at every step after that. Nothing you send is shared with anyone, and your photographs are deleted if we do not go ahead.

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