Steven Potter
Dave Farrar and Sig Gust each in their vintage toy stores.
Dave Farrar, left, and Sig Gust both own local vintage toy shops.
As a kid back in the ‘80s, Derek Gust cherished the chance to browse the aisles of Toys “R” Us and KB Toys.
“I could easily spend an hour walking around looking at the hundreds of toys and action figures with all of their bright, neon colors — Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, Voltron, all of it,” he remembers. “I didn’t always get something — we didn’t have a lot of money — but when I did, it was such an incredible feeling to pick something out and take it home.”
Gust, now 42, rediscovered that feeling about a decade ago when he started collecting those same toys he had back then, as well as many others he didn’t have but wanted.
“It took me right back to when you were free to just be a kid, when you didn’t have any worries,” says Gust, who admits he “was into the gross stuff back then like the Boglins puppets and Garbage Pail Kids.”
A few years ago, Gust began reselling vintage toys from the ‘80s and ‘90s and T-shirts online and in June he opened a retail shop on the city’s east side called Sig’s Treasure Chest.
It’s a bit of a trick to find the shop, at 222 North St. It’s located at the rear of the red brick building — go through the parking lot (across the street from Crostini Sandwiches) and ring the doorbell for Sig’s. Gust (whose nickname is Sig) will let you in and take you downstairs to the store. There is also an elevator.
Maybe it’s the obscure entrance or that you have to be let in or that it’s on a lower level, but once in the store, it feels like you’ve walked into someone’s secret treasure chest of toys.
Tables and racks and nearly every nook and cranny are packed with memorabilia from before the turn of the millenium. There are games, VHS tapes, clothes, puppets and an incredible range of toys including everything from Pac-Man and Pee-Wee Herman dolls to sports hero and Smurf figurines to He-Man, Batman and Spider-Man tie-ins.
“As we all grow up, we tend to pull away from the things we loved,” says Gust. “I want to give people a chance to find them again.”
As for the hottest vintage items these days, Gust says it’s “anything seen in or related to the show Stranger Things — it flies right outta here. Everyone, even teenagers and kids right now, just love that stuff.”
Another option for vintage toys is Meep Meepleton’s World of Fun, 912 Williamson St., opened by Dave Farrar and his wife, Amanda, in 2021.
Farrar began his collecting back in the late ’80s when many of the toys we call vintage today were just coming out. “There’s a connection so many of us share,” he says. “During the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, we all pretty much watched the same things — Gremlins, Star Wars, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters about 500 times. So we have a lot of those same memories. That’s a strong bond to each other and to the toys that came out back then.”
Farrar’s space is overflowing with several incarnations of Marvel and DC comic book figures and toys from shows like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, My Little Pony, The Muppets, The Simpsons and Star Trek. There are also old records and tapes, WWF wrestling characters, movie memorabilia and much more. And as a bonus, there’s Meep’s Workshop, which offers a space where kids and grown folks can paint and decorate squishy foam and vinyl figures.
As the end of the year gift-giving holidays approach, Farrar has some tips for those on the hunt for their vintage toy-loving friends and family: “I always ask if the person they’re buying for has a favorite character or scene from a show or movie and how old they are,” he says. “From there, you can begin to narrow it down and then I try to suggest the first editions of the toys — those usually make a great gift for any level of collector.”
