First toy show in Lincoln shines light on a simpler time

A big crowd of people gathered in north Lincoln today to talk, buy and sell toys.

The Lincoln area Toy Collectors Club of Nebraska took us back to a simpler time, with the tools that helped bring us our most unforgettable childhood memories.

It was the 1st toy show in Lincoln by the toy collectors club.

It encouraged the community to come out and share their collections, as well as the memories and love for the toys.

“As a toy collector, that’s what I do. A lot of things I sell are just to buy more toys. You don’t make millions of dollars doing this, you do it because you love it,” Lincoln Toy Club, Jared Ernst said. 

“This kind of playing…. And I love these guys [wrestler action figures] because they are solid rubber. When I was a kid, you could throw these guys up in the air as high as you could throw them and they’d fall all the way down and you couldn’t break them,” Vintage wrestling action figure collector, Steve Lingebach said.

“I’m a kid at heart, I really am. I’ve learned that you can’t take your life so seriously,” Toys From The Past member, Rex Jaycox said. 

“When kids play with toys, you decide what happens and you have to think of what happens, you have to decide who’s going to win the wrestling match, who’s going to win that war, that race, whatever,” Lingebach said. “You put one of these guys into a kid’s hand and the face lights up because they want to do something with it.”

They say the toys helped expand our young imaginations, something they fear today’s youth may have trouble grasping.

“It was being creative, it was doing all the stuff, getting energy out. And that’s missing right now,” Lingebach said. 

“Imagination is just hiding in the attic. Everybody has imagination.”…“Do I have an imagination?”….“yeah it’s in your attic,” youth toy vendors Elliott and James Krause said.

This crowd finds tremendous value in helping their children have access to that stage of imagination.

“And laughter…it feels good…it feels like I’m going to stay a kid forever.”…”It feels good to play with toys that aren’t in boxes, sitting in the attic, thinking ‘what is my purpose doing here in a box,'” the Krause boys said.

Early in their children’s education, they teach how that value can even adapt through adulthood.

“To continue on with my kids, and they know everything that we collect, they know that it’s worth, what it’s about, why we have it, what movie it was from. When you get bit with a bug like that, it’s really hard to get away from, and you pass it on very easily,” Ernst said. 

Collectors today say entertainment these days is too staged through electronic mediums, and toys brought the randomness out of the definition of “fun.”

This event hosted 30 vendors.

The Lincoln Toy Collector’s Club is hoping to get future events going, even 3 times a year.

The club meets the on last Wednesday of every month at the Toys From The Past storefront at 13th and Arapahoe Streets.