15 Valuable Toys From the 1990s Collectors Still Hunt For

Sometimes, a toy turns up in someone's Christmas stocking and ends up being adored to pieces or forgotten in a closet. Then, after two or three decades, that same toy is worth more than some used cars. 

Nobody, neither the child nor the parent who stood at the register at Toys "R" Us while it was being wrapped, had any idea that they were making an investment. 

There were a lot of these accidental investments made in the 90s. Kids who used their lunch money to buy Pogs and Pokémon cards have accidentally become adults with disposable income. 

This is a list of toys that cost just a few dollars in the 90s and are sometimes fetching four and five figures today at auctions.

The Pokémon card game became available in the US in early 1999 and is probably the most extreme example of how toys can become literal treasures.

A PSA 10 First Edition Charizard fetched $420,000 in 2022. This is obviously the card everybody knows about and that has made the rounds in the news. But the more interesting thing is that common First Edition cards in top condition, which people didn’t fight for in the school cafeteria, can be sold for $50-$500, while non-holo Base Set cards in good condition can go for about $20-$200. People are still finding full shoeboxes of cards at home that are being valued beyond their wildest dreams. All it took was some care not to bend the corners.

Children who saw Kevin McCallister record his fake mob boss voice in Home Alone 2 dreamed of having a cassette player that could do the same thing. Tiger Electronics answered their prayers in 1993 with a functional version of the movie prop.

Most of these toys were played with until they broke down due to overused pitch shifting, and that’s why functioning Talkboys are worth between $50 and $100, while mint-in-box versions are valued between $200 and $300. The Deluxe Talkboy version, which came with additional sound effects, is a little bit more expensive.

That's a five-to-ten-times return on a toy whose entire point was making your voice sound like a cartoon villain over the phone.

Bandai's egg-shaped digital creature first came out in Japan in 1996 and in the United States the following year. That pet needed so much attention that a lot of kids simply let their Tamagotchi starve within a week.

The Japanese originals with untouched packaging are being priced at anywhere between $500 and $3,000, depending on the color of the plastic. Rare colors like the Devil Gotch sell for much higher. The American version of this toy in mint condition sells for much less, but still a respectable amount of money.

The digital animal that first taught kids about the responsibilities of owning a pet now rewards the ones who didn’t care enough to take it out of the box.

The console itself goes for about $80-$150 with two controllers. That’s fair. But the cartridges are where the reasonable prices end. A sealed, first print of Super Mario 64 can be worth $500-$2,000. Conker's Bad Fur Day, a game that could hardly be shifted from shelves in the shops due to raunchy content, costs $80-$120 as a loose cartridge. Super Smash Bros., released in 1999 and considered a simple party game, was sold for nearly $19,000 on eBay. Who would’ve known that the game you didn’t even bother to take out of the package because you were busy with your favorite was going to help you pay your mortgage?

Nowadays, an original Game Boy, the kind that survived being dropped down stairs and left in hot cars, can be sold for $300 to $800 if it’s still in its box and in mint condition. That's already high for a toy that most households had at least one of.

But the real value is in the games. Factory-sealed copies of Pokémon Red, Blue or Yellow can go for anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000. Even opened copies, which are kept with the box and instruction booklet, can be worth from $100 up to $500. Not just Pokémon either. A copy of Super Mario Land 2 sold for $5,000 in mint condition.
That box that everybody threw away is worth more than the game now.

Although the Turtles appeared in the '80s, these toys became extremely popular in the early '90s, when Playmates kept inventing new characters faster than the cartoon could use them, splitting demand across so many figures that some ended up produced in only small numbers.

First-wave figures from the ordinary early waves now cost anywhere between $100 and $500, while the loose complete figures not packaged in any way can be sold for only $20-$50. However, there is one figure that really stands apart: Scratch the Cat, which sells for about $5,500 or $5,999 at auctions in good, packaged condition. Even loose and out of the package, Scratch alone still sells for about $500, ten times what other loose figures from the line cost.
Although Scratch the Cat sells for a crazy amount of money, he never even got his own episode.

Mattel launched the Treasure Hunt range back in 1995, employing a built-in scarcity strategy, in which only a few cars of each model with an exclusive finish were mixed amongst the regular line of Hot Wheels on store shelves, so kids and parents would buy multiple packs hunting for the rare ones.

The strategy seems to have exceeded Mattel's expectations. One '67 Camaro from the initial batch of the 1995 Treasure Hunt run went for a little over $1,900, and an entire set could sell for a hefty sum of $3,600.

What used to cost one dollar at Kmart is now worth almost two thousand times its original price, the only difference being that special finish.

The Pirates, Castle, and Space collections by LEGO in the 90s appreciate in value consistently. Some of the complete, sealed sets from these themes are currently selling at hundreds to thousands of dollars. These sets can yield an annual increase in value of 10 to 15 percent. That beats many traditional investment products.

There is an important caveat here. The word "complete." A set missing even a few small pieces or minifigure accessories loses most of its premium, an unusual quality control for a toy that is meant to be thrown in the bin along with 100 other sets.

The first Furby was introduced by Tiger Electronics in 1998, and it was the toy that parents would physically fight over in store aisles during that Christmas, thanks in part to a supply issue that no one had ever expected.

Original Furbies from the first generation, which is called Model 70-800, now go for anywhere between $100 and $300 in their original box. Rarer versions with unusual color schemes and even those released only at certain holidays have higher prices. One specific version of the Furby was put up for auction on eBay in 2025 with an asking price of $39,999.
It's ironic how vindicated the toy has become after all the ridicule it was subjected to over several years.

The Polly Pockets, tiny dollhouses folded into makeup compacts, were made by Bluebird Toys between 1989 and 1998. When the company was taken over by Mattel, the whole thing got too big and lost most of what made collectors care.

This is where the division is important. The collectible items were manufactured under the Bluebird brand. A mint Beauty Case compact recently sold for over $6,000, the Funtime Clock with a rare pink glitter finish for $1,900, while the far more modest Lucy Locket Carry 'N Play Dream Home from 1992 is still going for around $275 in its box. Sets that contain all dolls and accessories can be sold at five to twenty times the price of an incomplete set.

So here you have it, a plaything based on a world so small that it could get lost in a couch cushion, rewards the kids who were careful enough not to lose any parts.

The 1993 Kenner toy line had some of the most detailed figures of the decade, and a few pieces from this oddball toy line fetch prices higher than most people's rent.

A red series 2 "Demon" Carnotaurus figure has sold for more than $1,000. None of the dinosaurs in the Kenner toy line resembled their movie counterpart, and the Carnotaurus dinosaur didn’t even appear in the film at all. This has not deterred the collectors from hunting for it.

The majority of Beanie Babies are now worth only $1-$5, which is basically what they cost as brand-new toys. But there are a few exceptions: Peanut, Royal Blue Elephant, a 1995 manufacturing mistake that was fixed by changing the color to light blue, goes for $1,000-$5,000. First-edition Princess Diana memorial bears with their original PVC pellet filling, made before Ty switched materials, are worth $100-$500.

If you have a collection of Beanie Babies, odds are that you don't have either of the two. Your collection is probably great. Just not worth very much.

Galoob's miniature die-cast cars were meant to be torn open and played with right away. That’s probably why sealed and intact sets are so rare. It’s why they’re so valuable too.

The Emergency Collection #8, with only two known sealed examples in existence, was sold on eBay for $1,225. The Secret at Roswell collection of cars, which had an alien spaceship instead of a car or truck, has been sold for $599 individually and even $825 as a set of three. Star Wars licensed crossover playsets cost between $300 and $800.

Most Micro Machines collections that survive today are loose and played with. Those are not worth much. The sealed ones are where the money is.

The Hasbro WWF toys were released between 1990 and 1994 in eleven waves, and they shared the exact same trend that was seen in the Beanie Babies. Mass production of most items coupled with scarcity of some selected variants.

Loose versions of the most common figures are sold at prices ranging between $1-$5, which is an indication of how many of these toys Hasbro made. However, the Undertaker, whose purchase was dependent on how many points one managed to accumulate by sending proof of purchase points, sold for as much as $1,200 in its original packaging. Additionally, the graded Kamala "Moon Belly" variant, which was very rare, sold for as much as $11,000 in 2018.

Same toy line, same packaging, but a four-figure gap between the common version and the one nobody could find at Toys "R" Us.

Most Pogs cost just a few cents to a couple of dollars today. But there are some notable exceptions to this rule. Rare metal slammers, the heavier pieces used to flip over a stack of regular Pogs, are sold for $5 to $30 each. Complete sealed tube collections are sold for $50 to $200, especially if they are rare Hawaiian-market originals, from where this game allegedly came into being.

In case you collected a shoebox of loose Pogs, you collected a shoebox of nothing. In case you kept the tube collection unopened, you might have something.