Cecil Adcock, a mature gentleman in a tweedy cap, opens up the brown cardboard box with the gravity of a man unpacking an ancient family heirloom -- and like an ironic magician he pulls out a toy cowboy on a tin horse, twirling a lasso.
He dug it out of his basement and brought it for appraisal to the Antique Toy Road Show, which is set up for the next couple of days at the Holiday Inn Select in Timonium.
"You're looking at $225," says George McCurley judiciously. He's the major domo of this road company production of the International Toy Collectors Association, of Athens, Ill., where they pronounce Athens AY-thens. ("There are more members in the association than people in the town," McCurley says.)
McCurley figures that the cowboy, who looks like Gene Autry, is a "Range Rider" made by Marx and that $225 is a mid-range price for a well-used toy.
Adcock assumes the demeanor of concealed pleasure a cardplayer adopts when he fills an inside straight at the weekend poker game.
Now he brings forth an old metal touring car that looks like a model of Henry Ford's Model T.
McCurley is unimpressed with this one. He deems it a Japanese knock-off of an earlier German original.
"Not too valuable," he says. "It books for about $40. It's showing a little wear. So we'd discount a little off that, probably around $20."
He tells Adcock he wouldn't mind getting a couple of toy racing cars from Japan: a 21 Electro Racer or a 98 Friction. They're a little more rare.
"That 21 racer I'd pay $2,000 for and the 98 Friction would go $800 pretty easily," he says. "Got any of those in the basement?"
No, but Adcock's got a Popeye plate adorned with the sailor man, Olive Oyl and Swee'pea. Melmac. McCurley sniffs: $5.
"But that's a pretty good bid on your cowboy. Want to sell that?"
"Yes, I would like to," Adcock says. And he takes the $20 on the car, too. And the five bucks for the Popeye plate.
That's pretty much how it goes at the Antique Toy Road Show, no relation to the public television hit Antiques Road Show except for the high hopes of the customers. They try to visit 60 cities or more a year. They offer free appraisals to anybody who brings a toy.
Of course, a certain caveat emptor -- buyer beware -- is no doubt judicious. The road show team is making the price. Then they make an offer, or contact three collectors who can each make one bid. They pay on the spot, cash if you want it.
"We want fresh items directly from the attic. Stuff that hasn't been hauled around and everybody's seen it, the leftovers that every other collector in the world has passed up," McCurley says. "That's the exciting thing about it. The hunt for the item no one else has had a chance at."
But these days practically anybody's childhood toy is worth something. The baby boomers are already nostalgic for the toys of the 1950s and 1960s. Barbie, G.I Joe. McCurley and his crew picked up a virtually prehistoric G.I. Joe Popeye toy on this trip.
"I believe this is the first time G.I. Joe is used on a toy. Popeye riding in a Jouncy Jeep with Atomic Brakes. Probably from the late '40s, McCurley says. Hasbro didn't make its first G.I. Joe until 1964.
These days, sometimes accessories are worth more than the toys. A G.I. Joe Shore Patrol Telephone is worth $500, more than the doll it goes with.
The best deal McCurley made on this trip was a '30s Knickerbocker Mickey Mouse doll found in Burlington, N.J. The road show team offered it to collectors, who bid it up to $5,000.
So when you're in Toys 'R' Us, what's your best buy to pick up for an investment?
"Who knows?" McCurley confesses.
But forget Cabbage Patch Dolls or Tickle-Me Elmos or Furbies or Beanie Babies. Character-related things are the best buy.
What the world needs now is a Jerry Seinfeld doll. Jeez, Ralphie, a Jackie Gleason bus from the Honeymooners TV show is worth about $500 today.
Toy Road Show
Where: Holiday Inn Select, 2004 Greenspring Drive, Timonium Business Park, south of race track.
When: 8 a.m.-8 p.m. today, tomorrow.
Cost: Free. Information: 410-252-7373. Coming Sunday In Home & Family What, exactly, is involved in the art and science of appraising? We find out, taking a pair of vases to antiques dealers, museum curators, a professional appraiser and sending pictures to Sotheby's in New York. The results were surprising.
Pub Date: 3/03/99