This is honestly a topic I think about quite a lot. If I don't take them in from GoodWill will they get tossed away? Will they be sent to landfills? I think of toys as
toys but also as art. What's the difference between someone's 300 dollar anime figure and my g3 Hidden Treasure brushable? They are both
sculptures. One was simply meant to be more durable for handling! At the end of the day, I tend to only want something mint on card/in package if the packaging itself
is art. A lot of g4 packaging holds no artistic value to me so it doesn't hurt me to take it out of box. Altho like others have said, if I can acquire it out of box I would prefer to because buying it mint in box and then taking it out,,, it feels as if I am taking away an opportunity for someone who collects differently from me to be able to own that object in that condition. So unless there's no other way for me to buy it or buy it not entirely roughed up, I'll go for used. I did used to, and still sort of do, (and perhaps this WAS because of the Toy Story movies) think that my objects had thoughts and feelings. Perhaps a bit of Shintoism? Altho Shintoism does not believe that objects have feelings, only natural things, non-manmade. And for a long period of time... I was not afraid of my dolls, as I collect a lot of playline dolls. But I had enough friends over and tell me that they were creepy that I started to believe it. (Apparently this is something that happened to both of my parents, my father with dragons for which I don't know all the details, and my mother with her collection of unicorn figurines and objects while she was in a religious area and some guy convinced her that they were of the devil. Of course she later became pagan agnostic and greatly regrets getting rid of them all
)
It had gotten to the point where I had made sure that every single figurine, doll,
whatever in my room was NOT staring at my bed where I slept. This honestly required quite a lot of finangling and was quite annoying! I've recently been getting over it, and I'm not quite sure when I started the road trip back.
I really do think it depends on the item and it current condition, and there isn't an across the board thing. I mean these things were (at least most! unless it was a collector item!)
meant to be played with! Something I think about quite a lot. I grew up with the original Skydancers. They're quite pricey these days to collect!! Should I no longer play with them so I don't end up decreasing their value any further? I worry that maybe they will get sun damage from sitting on my shelf out on display... But at the end of the day they're probably one of my all time favorite toys and playing with them is SO MUCH FUN I just!! I could never tell myself "okay these are worth a lot so we can never play with it again". I just can't. They still
are my toys. And I'll never sell them. So as long as I'm playing with them the way they were meant to be(and not accidentally flying them into a lit fireplace
oh my god that poor little girl can you even imagine ) I think at the end of the day it's all fine and good!