Star Wars Archives - The Silicon Underground

Why have Marx toys dropped in value?

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 11:00:37 +0000

“Why have Marx toys dropped in value?” you ask? Blame Millennials. Well, actually, my generation bears more of the blame for this one. Blame Gen X. The value of vintage toys tends to follow trends, and those trends don’t necessarily

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Most valuable baseball cards of the 1980s

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 11:00:00 +0000

In the 1980s, almost everyone I knew collected baseball cards, at least briefly. When we think of the 1980s today, baseball cards aren’t what comes to mind but they probably deserve to be up there with video games, Rubik’s cubes,

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When KB Toys closed

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 12:00:26 +0000

When KB Toys closed is a relative question. While KB Toys went out of business in 2009, the store closest to you may have closed earlier than that. It was a sad end for a staple of my childhood, and

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How to value baseball cards

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:00:11 +0000

If you have a collection, knowing how to value baseball cards is helpful. That way, if you need to insure or liquidate the collection, you’ll receive a fair price. But fair also means realistic. A lot of factors go into

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Selling Tyco trains

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 11:00:08 +0000

I got an inquiry last week about selling Tyco trains. As a child of the 70s and 80s, I certainly remember Tyco, and in recent years Tyco has gained a bit of a following. If you’re looking to sell some

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Happy birthday, Rubik’s Cube!

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 20 May 2014 11:00:57 +0000

Rubik’s Cube turned 40 this week. In a reflection of how much faster the world moves today than it used to, I remember Rubik’s Cube from the early 1980s, when it was a big, national craze. I had no idea

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Putting right E.T. for the Atari 2600

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 22:18:36 +0000

Hacking vintage video games has been a popular trend this year, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before I saw this: A hobbyist spent a few weeks this year fixing the infamous E.T. cartridge for the

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Go-Bots vs Transformers: My small-town perspective

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 21:10:33 +0000

Internet pal Rob O’Hara posted a photo of a whatzit antique mall find earlier this week. I knew I’d seen it before, and I knew some of my friends had it, but its identity escaped me. The answer got me

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How abandonware gets abandoned

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 01:14:54 +0000

From time to time on classic computing and/or videogaming forums, the question of how to track down the current copyright holder to a particular given title comes up. Sometimes someone knows the answer. Frequently they don’t. This week, when George

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Creative play with boys

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:30:28 +0000

On Saturday morning, my wife went out for a few hours to run errands and left me home with the boys. And when she came home, I was on the living room floor building a garage out of Mega Bloks

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