When I was little, my mom used to hit the summer sales and snag new toys at rock bottom prices to put in the "birthday box." When we got an invitation to a birthday party, we got to pick a toy out of the box to take to our friend. At some point, we outgrew the idea, she stopped buying toys for the box, and we forgot about it.
Fast forward 30 years. Mom died, and Dad had my sister and I clean out house. At the back of the closet was - tada! - the birthday box. Full of MIB, or "mint in the box" toys. I put them on Ebay, which was just really getting to be big at the time. Dear god, talk about a bidding war. A MIB Cher doll; a MIB rare Mattel witch doll with light up eyes that was only made for a year or two; an even rarer MIB Cinnamon doll - (that's Growing Hair Chrissy's little sister, if you didn't know...), and all kinds of odd little toys that were huge in the 70's. Mom's antiques weren't worth much, since eBay had killed the antiques market - but geez, did those toys go for some money! Crazy people bidding hundreds of dollars on plastic toys.....