Was this product a tie-in with a movie or television series?
Might it have been thought of as, stereotypically, a boys’ toy?
A girls’ toy?
Or would it have been gender neutral?
Was the consumer collecting an array of characters?
Were the valuable and least valuable pieces the same type of toy, like they were both dolls or both cars?
Or were they different, like one was a doll and the other a doll accessory or one was a car and the other a garage?
I also need to correct a previous answer.
…to which I said no, but Partial Yes is more accurate. This question is on the right track.
Would you have given me the correct answer — or at least an “I don’t know which way to bet” — if, at the time they came out, I’d turned to you and said, “gosh, if I were only able to hang on to one of these collectibles for twenty years and then try to sell it, which one of these two would you recommend I hold on to? Which one do you think will be rarer? Which one more valuable?”
Or would you have probably gotten it wrong back then?
I would probably have been unable to discern which would be more valuable in the future, assuming they’re all in mint condition.
(I guess. Part of the problem with this one is that these things are so obscure that it’s hard to find reliable information on them. There’s not even a Wikipedia page.)
Did this thing have moving parts? e.g. a toy car with wheels that go round, or a doll with joined arms and legs.
Was it electical/ electronic?
Was it made of wood? metal? plastic? paper/card?
Was it made of multiple pieces, e.g. Lego or a jigsaw puzzle?
Was it a single object not supposed to come apart?
Was it somewhere in between, e.g. a doll with accessories?
Would you buy it as a single item?
Would you buy it as multiple similar items, e.g. a pack of trading cards, or a box of plastic soldiers?
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The ones that, at the time, were intended to be more valuable — were they sold for a different price than the other ones? Or was it the same price, but they were rarer?
All the same price.
Were people purchasing them blind? Like, you pay the price, and only then find out if you’ve gotten one of the intended-to-be-valuable ones?
I believe so, but that is not the reason.
Was it supposed to be put back again? Or once it’s off it’s gone?
Was it a sticker that can be peeled off to reveal a hidden thing?
Or if not a sticker, then something concealing something.
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Is it that the less-durable ones got routinely damaged in the very act of being played with as intended?
Yes, and I think that’s enough to call it.
They were called Breakeys, and the way you were supposed to play with them was by breaking them against each other. The stronger pieces would survive, and the weaker pieces would break and get thrown away. And then you buy more, presumably.
It was such a stupid, self-defeating idea for a toy that next to nobody bought any, so in reality they’re probably all about equally hard to find.
I have one!
A well-trained cook was preparing soup. In a very rare incident, the cook died. How?
Does it matter what kind of soup?
Fugu? Albatross?
Nope.
Was the death a result of preparing the soup (like pressure-cooker exploded)?
Was the death caused by the soup (like food poisoning)?
Would the death had happened to a lesser-trained cook?
was the death completely unrelated to the soup, e.g. building demolished by a meteorite strike?