Kids Snatch Up Adult Collectibles

"[Dunnies are] blind packaged, like baseball cards, and you don’t know what you will get."—Sidney Witt, co-owner of The Toy Store in Atlanta

With reporting by regional correspondents Virginia Davis, Bonnie Priever and Willow Polson

A little punk rabbit has sneaked into a market where PVC knights usually reign supreme, reported a TDmonthly Magazine regional correspondent. While a quarter of 38 retailers surveyed confirmed that Papo (ToyShow) was still selling like “wildfire,” Sidney Witt, co-owner of The Toy Store in Atlanta, claimed that boys and girls have picked up on a KidRobot adult collectible: the 2-faced Dunny.

“They’re blind packaged, like baseball cards, and you don’t know what you will get,” explained Witt.

Adults are still into the Dunnies, too. Witt’s other hot collectible, for all genders and ages, is Pretty Ugly’s Uglydolls (Gift Guide). These two toys “have become sensations, in a way,” he said.

The rest of the retailers reported that boys were craziest for trains from Thomas the Tank Engine and plastic animals by Safari (Gift Guide), Schleich (Gift Guide)and Papo. Girls liked the latter, too, adding Bryer horses to their collectible lists. Two retailers mentioned the Webkinz by Ganz as one of their best buy-more toys.

And though Margaret James, manager of Child’s Play in Gresham, Ore., claimed that Manhattan Toy’s (ToyDirectory) “Groovy Girls are on the way out,” she added that they’re “still the biggest one category we have. … Once people get started on them, they come back for more accessories and clothing.”

Nine retailers confirmed that the Groovies remained their hottest collectible for girls. “Some adults collect the Groovy Girls, too,” noted Shannon Nashif, manager of Creative Kidstuff in Portland, Ore. One southern retailer said that Kidz by Dezign's (ToyShow) Slumber Girls, which launched nationally in summer 2006, was waking up the collector in her girl customers.