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| PART FOUR: THE NEW CARETAKERS
Picture a typical collectors’ convention, where an elderly woman is rocking in a chair and keeping an eye out for prospective customers. She has a table filled with rare, intricately designed toys. They represent exquisite workmanship; clearly crafted to look beautiful and last, they were also made to delight children and adults long after the designers were gone. Now they are all in the possession of this old woman, and she has been their caretaker, preserving the work of the toymakers whose names have long since receded into memory. She may be the only person left alive who even knows that such toys exist, and now she is ready to pass them on, even though they might be scattered and sold into the hands of several different collectors, never to be complete again. Maybe she needs the money, or maybe her apartment complex has added a "no exquisite toys" clause to her rental agreement, but that doesn’t matter; her time as caretaker is ending.
We are all caretakers with a responsibility to preserve the past we love. But this task never ends, and there is still a great deal to do. Imagine how much easier it would have been if a book like Hake’s Price Guide were published decades ago, as the items in question were being made and distributed. Instead of guessing at some things and grasping at crumbling papers for others, we would have first-hand knowledge of the people, places, and things we so cherish today. We would have reference works that provide a clear guide for what exists and what remains to be collected, and that would be of incalculable value to enthusiastic collectors, much more so than knowing how much money they’re worth. Nostalgia is a powerful current, not only washing over us and enveloping us in its power but moving us along in time as well. By the year 2000, the waves of nostalgia will have continued to wash forward, and the 1980s will be the decade of choice, the "hot" era for those of us who regularly mine the past. It is inevitable that the tide will always turn again, and as responsible historians, we too must move with the times and record what has been to have a clearer understanding of what will be (it’s a responsibility we take seriously here; as you will note, this year’s edition boasts a number of category additions like Doctor Who, Kiss, and The Simpsons, to demonstrate that we are moving forward as well as looking back). Preserving the past is vital, but the diligent historian also records events as they occur, before they too recede into the mists of time and are difficult (and in some cases impossible) to accurately recover. If we are so concerned with preserving the past, then the time for recognizing the importance and value of the last twenty or thirty years of collectibles is now. The care and respect we must give to the whole history of this hobby extends to collectors themselves. This serves as a call to arms--a declaration of our desire to protect and preserve the history of our hobby, past, present, and future--but that can’t be accomplished without cooperation from all collectors. As we have already discussed, there is an unfortunate tendency in this hobby to polarize in opinion and attitude, and nowhere more strongly and less reasonably than on the issue of age. Collectors of past generations must realize that a clear understanding of the terminology, characters, and world they know cannot be achieved by the new collectors without time. The desire is already there in the heart of every collector, but it must be properly cultivated. The old must respect and welcome the new, teaching them the value of the history they’re taking on and encouraging them to delve farther into the past before it vanishes forever. The young collectors of tomorrow will eventually learn how important it is to cherish the past, but they must also be able to enjoy the present and their own interests, and that in turn is something the previous generation must learn and accept. The collectibles of new collectors have as much validity as those of previous generations, and after all, we are all part of the same noble effort. Although some might characterize ours as a disposable "junk" society, we should know better. Collectors are the only people who can appreciate and preserve American cultural heritage through toys and collectibles. We are all caretakers, and as the self-appointed guardians of a world of imagination that too few people see in its entirety, we would be foolish not to acknowledge that every era has a value, and one not always quantifiable in dollars and cents. It’s a value that can’t be estimated with calculators and market reports...but only with the human heart.
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So where do we go from here? Well, Spider-Man’s credo has always been
"with great power comes great responsibility," and if collectors hold the power
to shape and direct the future of the hobby in their hands, then the power we wield
collectively must be treated responsibly as well. This is about much more than acquiring
material possessions, investing in lucrative collectibles, or even the power of nostalgia
itself--it’s about the whole history of pop culture, and preserving the past for the
benefit of the future.
Now a man several decades younger than the old woman happens by
the table and is instantly struck by the style and quality of the toys. He feels a
connection to them and to the old woman as well, and he knows that he has to buy all of
them and keep the set complete. This compulsion is not merely a desire to acquire, but a
need to know and understand the story behind the collectibles. In the end, the old woman
leaves the convention with some money and an empty table, and the man has carried away a
prize of considerable worth. He not only bought something that makes him happy, but he
felt a bond with a kindred spirit, and silently accepted the responsibility of carrying on
where the old woman left off. He is now the protector of those fragile moments in
history--the new caretaker. He not only carries away items with great collectible value,
but he becomes the steward of their story, and if he doesn’t know it himself, he
might turn to a book like this one to find out.