Toy Bender

Here’s another guest article courtesy of a fellow 451 Writer and super awesome person, Allison Boyer.

- Paul

These guys can help you. No, really.

Collecting “Up”

I’m not a toy collector. Well, unless you count sentimental teddy bears from ex-boyfriends. And I’m guessing that most of you don’t. That said, I do watch a lot of Bravo television. Stay with me here, I promise I’ll be relevant at some point, since Paul was awesome enough (Looks like we are off to a great start here - Paul) to let me write for you all.

One of Bravo’s most famous original programs is Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t, but in any case, the concept is simple. Five gay guys “fix up” a straight guy by teaching him better personal hygiene, cleaning up his house, and buying him cool clothing. You should have saw the episode they did the a frat house – it was a riot.

I digress. What I really wanted to talk about with you all here at Toy Bender is the recent episode where the boys headed to the Dickler household. Yes, I said Dickler. Phil Dickler got the short end of the stick in the last name department. But even more interesting than Phil’s last name was his main “straight guy” problem – he was a collector out of control.

Phil collected toys (mostly huge, old arcade games and alien-related toys), among other things, like taxidermy (yeah, dead animals) and elephant items. His home was like a fun house, to the point where his wife was embarrassed to have guests. Toy collecting took over Phil’s life.

The Queer Eyes cleaned up Phil and his life, and part of their therapy was setting up a meeting between Phil and an Ebay expert, since most of his addiction came from logging onto Ebay every day to buy new toys and other items. He gave Phil a number of awesome tips (and a free computer, what a lucky Dickler). My favorite? Always collect “up.”

What the expert taught Phil was that the number of items in his collection wasn’t quite as important as the overall quality of the collection. In other words, instead of collecting lots of crap, it’s important to collect items that either 1) really mean something to you or 2) are worth a lot of money. He gave a really good suggestion – after you’ve built up your collection to the point where you can’t display all of it anymore, try managing your collection by selling a piece every time you buy a piece. No one’s suggesting that you get rid of anything that is near and dear to your heart, but there’s no reason to keep that sub-par action figure if you decide to buy the same one in better condition.

The extra money funds your collection addiction too. That, and cleaning house feels good. The Dicklers’ house was amazing after they sold all of their unworthy items, and he made a pretty penny on Ebay, meaning he could affording bigger and better collectibles. And believe me, when your name is Dickler, bigger and better is always a good thing.

- Allison Boyer - 10/17/07

toy, toy collecting, Queer Eye, Bravo, television