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Buy toys as an investment? What would Teddy Ruxpin say?

Those Citi banking commercials where a fictional toy called the Robosan 4000 is the “must-have” toy of the holiday season take me back to the Christmas of 1985. The advent of “New Coke” inspired me to tuck away a bottle of “old” Coke, the 7-Eleven near my apartment finally pulled that lame “Tron” video game, fans were thinking Super Bowl after the Chicago Bears won their division, and I joined in the mad rush to find my niece a mechanical Teddy Ruxpin teddy bear that moved its mouth and eyes as it talked and read books.

Teddy Ruxpin retailed for a whopping $68. But greedy consumers, who cut their teeth during the great Cabbage Patch Kids doll frenzy two years earlier, bought up Teddy Ruxpins and used the shortage to create an even more expensive bull market for the bear. There were stories of desperate shoppers shelling out more than $100 for black-market Ruxpins.

Today, you can find a number of those Teddy Ruxpins selling online for less than they cost 25 years ago. Meanwhile, bidding has topped $1,100 on a box of robot Transformers from the same year that weren't nearly as popular as Teddy Ruxpin.

“I really think that's part of the fun. You just don't know,” says Diana Tabin, one of the original founders of the annual toy show that has been coming to the Kane County Fair Grounds in St. Charles for the past 38 years. “To buy something now and put it away and think, ‘I'm going to have a fortune later,' could work, but it's the luck of the draw.”

Toy collectors generally are a little different from other collectors, Tabin says. There is more to toy collecting than cold, hard investing facts.

“Toys are a dear thing to people's hearts,” Tabin says. “Part of the fun is to get something you had as a kid that you really liked. There is a personality to a toy. There's something about them that attracts people. There's a charm to the toys.”

I think Teddy Ruxpin lacked the charm that some other toys possess.

Of course, charm is in the heart of the beholder. The annual “Antique-Collectible Toy & Doll Show” (www.chicagotoyshow.com) coming May 15 to the Kane County Fair Grounds boasts more than 500 exhibitors, but most “die-hard collectors” only care about one or two booths, Tabin says. Someone who goes nuts for a 1960s Chatty Cathy doll might not care a whit about a 1940s toy airplane that thrills another collector.

The serendipity of toy collecting adds to the fun, Tabin says. Little tin toys handed out free to movie patrons in Europe a couple of generations ago have turned into a lucrative collectible.

“They were nothing, and those things are worth thousands of dollars today,” Tabin says.

Even she is surprised by some items that increase in value.

“Crazily, having it in a box is a big deal. Some of the boxes sell for as much as the toy,” Tabin says.

Others find a toy that has spent its whole life inside its original packaging a bit sterile. “There are collectors who want a little wear and tear because they want it to look like someone played with it,” Tabin says.

One of her favorite toy stories is about a couple who couldn't afford a car when they got married. Friends gave them the usual wedding presents of crystal and dinnerware, but tied a little cast-iron car on top of the package as their “honeymoon car.” The bride kept the toy car tucked away for decades.

“That car is now worth more than all the crystal and silver she got for her wedding presents,” Tabin says. “The joke they got on top of their wedding presents is worth more than the wedding presents.”

If you are buying toys for kids this time of year, you might ignore the hype and advertising and “must-haves,” and just buy something that seems fun.

Seeing a child have fun with a toy is a memory that always keeps its value.