Do you remember when you were younger and your parents would tell you stories about how they bought toys, comics and dolls for pennies as a child that are now rare collectibles worth hundreds even thousands of dollars today? Did you cringe when they told you that those rare collectibles are now gone because they either threw them away or lost them? Were you as annoyed with them as I was that they so easily could have just gotten rid of something that today could bring them a fortune? Did you promise yourself that you would never make the same mistake? – And now do you want to kick yourself as hard as I do because that is exactly what we did?

I have heard that same story from so many people. People who told me that either themselves or their parents got rid of rare comic books, old dolls and collectibles that were childhood playthings to them – but priceless artifacts to today’s collectors. I swore that I would never make that mistake. If I got hold of something that I thought would be priceless, I would do everything I could to hang on to it and never be stupid enough to simply discard it – then I went to a collectible store for lunch today – and realized that if anyone is stupid, it’s me.

When I saw what was in this store – I freaked. I realized that this store that sold “rare collectibles” had my entire childhood encased in glass. It looked as if they went back in time, took my toy chest, carefully placed its contents in a display case and raised each item’s price a few thousand percent. It was at that moment that I realized that I had done exactly what I swore I would never do. I let “priceless artifacts” slip through my fingers and now had no choice but to live with the fact that items I played with as a child were now worth a small fortune – and there is nothing I can ever do about it.

Putting aside the fact that I was an idiot for a moment, I was marveled at the prices that the items were going for. For example, a Han Solo doll that cost me $3.99 as a child that I used to bury under dirt when I would play Star Wars now goes for $300 in it’s original packaging. Even Wacky Packs – a set of cards that would mock popular household products by renaming them with similar yet gross names like “Vomet” instead of Comet was revered as a piece of historical pop culture.

I was ready to hang myself for my stupidity when it hit me. It was at that moment when I realized why I had made this mistake and why everyone else that had made the same mistake as myself should be forgiven for their sins. The reason they did what they did and I did what I did can be summed up in two words – who knew?

As a child, how could anyone have possibly known that the toys they played with would be worth money years later? Granted, children see these toys as priceless – but in a different way. I remember when I got my first Star Wars figure as a child, I now had to have every figure, ship and set they made. So to me, they were priceless necessities that were worth their weight in gold – because I wanted to be the one kid on my block that had the Millennium Falcon. But as far as preserving them in order to hold their value – no. I would have never guessed that my toys would be worth money later in life.

But I wish I did.