Great article. I realized what you said not to long ago. I have a six year old who loves Star Wars and I had been keeping some of the "chase" and "rare" figures in storage. My son would some times look at them and I knew I would never play with them. So I gave them to him and you know what? He loves them. The funny thing is, I went to my local comic shop and those very same figures were priced the same as when they came out. Its all about the hype.

Exactly. Toys are made to be played with. For any age.

I have to say that this is a tremendously well written article exhibiting a great deal of insight into the fascinating world of collectible toys. I do have to take issue with the author's assertion that action figures should be removed from their packages and be played with. I recently sold over $100,000 of rare action figures (all of which were safely snug in their packages) over eBay with the help of my wife, who inspired me to quit my job at Smart Tech and start my own electronics store with my earnings. I strongly doubt I would have made half of that figure had I not been extremely patient for all of the 40 years of my life, waiting for the final payoff. Nevertheless, despite my disagreement, this article is a fine bit of prose and I look forward to future installments of "Out of the Box" by this brilliant author.