Interview with Marcelowyellow!!

 

 Interview with a Collector - ggsdolls blog Series 

      Here's my monthly series on my blog where I share some of the most amazing collectors, sellers, and creatives, that have become friends of mine and what they collect and why?

    For the month of June, my blog interview is with the handsome, marcelowyellow on Instagram or commonly known as Marcelo.

    Marcelo was born in Brazil and am currently living in Rio de Janeiro. Though he has lived in the United States for twenty plus years too. He has worked as a store manager for an Italian high-end fashion brand. Now on to the questions!

    What began your journey to collecting rubber face plushies, etc?     

     I'm a collector at heart, and have gone through several different phases during my 25 plus years of collecting vintage toys, kitsch and ephemera. My interests are quite vast as far as toys go, but I'll try to keep my focus between the decades of the 1950s to the early 1980s. Though, I do own several rubber-faced plushies I do not actively hunt them down. But will buy them on occasion if I fall in love with the character and the price is right. The bulk of my collection these days consists of vintage rubber and vinyl toys (squeaks) and vintage fashion dolls, such as Brazilian Susi (1966-1975), pre-80s Barbies and celebrity dolls. Besides those, I also collect Japanese toys/dolls, 70s action figures, vintage Happy Meal toys, rollie pollie dolls, 80s Playmobil, space-themed toys and the list keeps on going...

    How do you describe your relationship with your collection? What attracts you to these items and what keeps you interested?

    Vintage toys remind me of the happy carefree days of childhood. Though I did not come from a “wealthy” family, I pretty much got the toys I coveted as a kid, as far as I recall. So, no, I wasn't this toy-deprived child who compensates for it as an adult or has a bout of Peter Pan Syndrome.

    Looking at my collection, displayed on shelves and cases in my home, does transport me back to those joyful times and I still do get starry eyed about it. Toys musn't be expensive to be cherished either as I value the dirt cheap broken toys from the flea market as much as the break-the-bank highly coveted collectibles you've overbid from Ebay.

    What is it about the vintage kitsch era that makes it different from other eras?

    The eyes! I'm a total sucker for those big round eyes combined with that mid-century aesthetic. I'm such an old soul and if something is vintage, combined with cute, with a touch of kitsch and a dash of weird I'm in! Let's also mention the quality and care put into manufacturing them, with all those amazing hand done details we don't find on contemporary toys at all anymore. Vintage packaging graphics & illustrations are also amazing!

     Tell me a bit more about your collection.

    I've been a collector since I was a kid and I've collected stuff like match boxes, key chains, candy wrappers soda cans and whatever else I thought was cool at the time. As a teenager, I was into new wave records and foreign magazines. When I moved into my first apartment, I started buying 50s/60s furniture and kitschy atomic-age objects to decorate my place. Along with that I was already adding vintage toys to my own childhood ones that my mom never had the heart to give away. Moving to the US a couple of years later opened the horizon to having access to many more vintage toys that weren't available back in Brazil. I recall making my first truly vintage (to me) purchase in Miami in the mid 90's: a Farrah Fawcett doll, a Buck Rogers doll and a Brooke Shields doll, all mint in box – and I was in heaven! The next milestone was when I opened my first Ebay account in 1999 and was only downhill from there! I went through a couple of years of really heavy Ebay buying and I don ́t regret it a bit! I actually only regret the toys I sold on eBay at times I thought I needed to scale down my hoarding.

Though toys are my main focus, I must confess I do bring the oddest stuff home from the flea markets, such as old medical school props, taxidermy and whatever else strikes my fancy. My home can be a tad creepy for first-timers. But I love that surprise aspect too. Nowadays, I m mainly on the lookout for vintage rubber squeaks and 70's. Susi doll fashions as example, but I search for a dozen other things too, depending on the day's mood.

    What has been the reaction to your collection from family and friends?

    It's usually a surprise when new people I meet learn that I collect vintage toys, specially work- related folk. Some people find it quite interesting and some are unfazed, and that's OK too. To my family it ́s no big deal as I ́ve been a collector of stuff since I was a kid. To be a collector you must not care too much about what people say or think about your hobbies, as it's your passion and we cannot live our lives to please others, right?

    Do you have a favorite item and why is it so special to you?

    I don't have a favorite item, really, and couldn't pick just one. But, usually my latest purchase is usually my favorite one for the time being.

    If any item could just fall on your lap free of charge? What item would that be, and why?

    Just one? That's a hard one! There is a Viceroy panda version of a Sunny bear that has been on my wish list for a few years. But haven't seen one for sale yet. I'd be very happy to own one of those for sure!! Pandas are the best and Sunny is just the cutest bear, so combining both is just perfection!

    Have you noticed an increase in the popularity of vintage kitsch, why do you think this is so?

    Pop singer, Melanie Martinez is certainly the main artist who introduced that kitschy-creepy- cute aesthetic to her young fanbase, who are voraciously gobbling up Rushtons & rubber faces from Ebay. Prices have also skyrocketed since, that is a bummer. Some young collectors can be a bit too eager to build a collection overnight. So that also reflects on the inflated prices we see now regarding 50 ́s/60 ́s era nursery-style toys and kitsch. But, I'm also glad that a new generation of collectors are appreciating and preserving these amazing toys. 

    Finally, is there anything else you would like to add?

    Building a collection, be it toys, stamps, lunchboxes or baseball cards, requires discipline, research, patience and perseverance. It could takes years to build a focused collection and some grail items might seem impossible to attain or take forever to show up at a decent price, but they always do! Collections are often changing hands for a variety of reasons. So, be patient and try not to overpay unnecessarily. Treasures can be found pretty much anywhere so be open minded to expand where you search for them too. Keep it in mind that we are just the current guardians of our collections, which one day will move on to the next guardian. In the meantime, enjoy and have fun with it! Don't hog information, share with it your peers. There is so much out there to be learned about toy collecting still and it's the network we build with other collectors that will keep on widening our horizons.

    Also, be kind to other collectors, be it newbies or old timers and keep out of the gossip mill, as we do not need that negative energy.

Perfectly said my dear friend! Thank you so much to Marcelo for allowing me to interview him, share his amazing collection and give us some wise words to part with!

Until next month for another installment of an interview with a collector! Kindness Matters...

Thank you for reading! ~ ggsdolls