A feast for full-grown toy aficionados in Thornhill

You’d be forgiven for thinking an event called the Toronto Toy Fair would be a heaven for children.

But instead, it was the parents and adults, not the kids, who got giddy in Thornhill on Sunday over collectibles from their childhood, immaculately preserved in their original boxes.

The fair is a semi-regular show organized by Sari and Shane Kirshenblatt, who were looking to fill a void in the 905 area for shows geared toward hardcore collectors. Though sites like eBay and Amazon make it possible to find collectibles everywhere, Shane Kirshenblatt said some still prefer finding them at events.

“Part of it is the thrill of the hunt . . . It is a little bit of a frenzy usually first thing in the morning during the early-bird hour when people are looking for specific things,” he said.

The theme for Sunday was sci-fi toys, in anticipation of the upcoming film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Though many vendors carried toys from all sorts of movies and TV shows, Jason Marchand chose to run with the theme and sold only Star Wars merchandise at his booth — though he admitted a rubbish bin behind him was hiding a few Star Trek figures.

Marchand has been a Star Wars fan all his life. His first movie was the original movie in 1977, at a drive-in when he was four years old, though he wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate it.

“I remember playing in front of the playground in front of the drive-in,” he said.

As he grew up, his love for the movies grew, and a few years ago he started hunting for the toys he remembered as a kid. Eventually he ran out of space, so he started selling them, at shows and in his store in Pickering.

“What I bought took over the basement, the garage I needed an outlet,” he said.

Most of Marchand’s items were meant for collecting, with the exception of a small round droid, called the BB-8, which is already expected to be the hottest Christmas toy this year. END

The collectors prowling the booths on Sunday were most likely not looking for Christmas toys, and most of them hadn’t been kids for years, but the excitement of finding a toy they’ve wanted forever hasn’t changed.

“To be in a crowd with so much stuff around you, it’s like being in a toy store,” Kirshenblatt said.