5 things that you bought 20 years ago for 4 pesos, you left forgotten and today they are worth a small fortune

Do you remember what was fashionable among children 20-30 years ago? The youngest saved to buy a PS2 (with Final Fantasy X if possible), exchanged Magic cards or interacted with their Tamagotchi or Furby.

If you have some of these objects stored in a corner of the house, go rescue them immediately: there is a good chance that you have a small fortune without knowing it.

And it is that today the power of nostalgia has caused a boom in the collecting of comics, video games, collectible cards and toys.

Although it is true that the most expensive objects are usually very old (perhaps the best example is a copy of the first issue of Superman, from 1938, recently sold for 2.7 million euros), products from 2 decades ago are also highly sought after . Don't underestimate the little treasures you can have gathering dust.

So get to work: take a look at the list below, write down what you remember still having at home, put on your gloves and search, search and search until you find collectibles that, if you really don't want them, they will find an owner by eBay or similar services.

1. Comics

It is not surprising that comics are on the rise in the world of collecting, especially if they are adventures about superheroes. The constant premieres of Marvel and DC movies mean that every year there are new fans of this world, and some are willing to pay whatever it takes to have the most symbolic comics (usually numbers 1 or those where characters debut).

You may think that the only comics that are worth a small fortune are those that belong to the golden age, that is, from the 30s to the 60s-70s. Many famous heroes were born in those years, and hence their first issues are highly coveted.

However, there are anomalies. Some comics from 20-30 years ago that are worth their own. For example, in 1997 Spawn emerged, a dark hero created by Todd McFarlane, an artist who at the time revitalized Spider-Man and created great characters like Venom.

McFarlane decided to leave Marvel to get the long-awaited creative freedom, and that's when Spawn was born. The first issue was a complete success... but there was a consignment whose cover was not properly inked and was left in black and white. A copy of this theoretically ruined comic has been sold for about 1,300 euros.

That's not all: issue 36 of The Amazing Spider-Man, which came out in 2001, today can be worth more than 300 euros. Spidey's number 700, quite a figure lady, can easily reach 800 euros. The first issue of The Walking Dead, which debuted in October 2003? It has been sold on eBay for almost 9,000 euros.

So rummage through your closet or storage room to find all those special comics from 2 or 3 decades ago. They may be worth more than you think.

2.and consoles

Many current collectors are gamers or have an interest in this world. As a result, the prices of classic games for Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, GameBoy or the first PlayStation skyrocket over time.

One only has to remember the crazy price escalation that occurred at the beginning of 2021: on April 3, the mythical Super Mario Bros. for the first Nintendo became the most expensive game in history after a copy in perfect condition was sold. sold for more than 550,000 euros.

A few months later, in July, the first The Legend of Zelda, also for the classic NES, raised the bar again when one of its copies sold for more than 700,000 euros. Over the next few months, the record was continually broken and broken until, in August, another copy of Mario sold for a whopping €1.7 million.

Again, it's normal to think that collectors are only looking for retro games from the 70s or 80s. And, again, this belief is dismantled when you do a little research and discover that the prices of games from the early 2000s have also increased. Recently. And it is that the titles for GameCube, PS2 or Xbox have already become retro. Time does not forgive!

In particular, you should be very attentive to games from 20 years ago that had very few copies distributed. At the time, they were a sales failure. But, over time, they have become highly sought after cult titles.

For example, a good condition copy of the rare Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness GameCube role-playing game can sell for €900. Rule of Rose, a controversial horror game for PS2 that was already difficult to find at the time, can be worth 1,100 euros today.

But that is not all. Starting in the early 2000s, video game companies made special editions of their consoles all the rage. They tuned their devices to include motifs from popular sagas, or included games in special and limited packs.

These special editions today are also worth a small fortune. For example, the Green Halo edition of the original Xbox can be sold for more than 4,000 euros. Or a GameCube Platinum that came with the Metroid Prime game may well be worth 2,200 euros.

All these prices have been obtained from Price Charting, a page in charge of monitoring the latest prices of collectible games.

3. Trading Cards

Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!... the late '90s and early 2000s was the golden age of trading card games. At that time, the young people who discovered this hobby did not have enough money to obtain all the cards, or the best of each print or series.

However, these fans have grown up, they already have money and the nostalgia factor calls them: they want to find those cards that they could not get at the time.

So you better have kept many of your Magic or Pokémon cards in good condition, because the figures they can be worth are succulent.

For example, 2 decades ago, the Black Lotus card from Magic (which adds 3 mana of any color, a very powerful ability within the rules of the game) was so rare that it could be worth 200-300 euros in flea markets. 20 years later? If the condition of the letter is good, perhaps you have 20,000 euros saved and you had not even realized it.

Leaving aside the eternal Pikachu, what is one of the most beloved classic Pokémon? Charizard. The fire dragon starred in the mythical cover of Pokémon Red, it was one of the first Pokémon that Ash managed to evolve in the anime, and precisely in one of the films he faced the Legendary Dog Entei.

As a result, any Charizard-related merchandise these days may be worth more than you think, and that includes trading cards. Their first edition cards, the ones from 1999, cost perfectly 20,000-30,000 euros, and their most modern cards also have attractive prices.

4. Electronic pets

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The Furbys were at first an unprecedented success, to the point that for months it was impossible to get one of them. How not to be attracted to an electronic toy with its own personality that, through artificial intelligence, was learning to communicate with you?

Now it is possible that you have the Furby abandoned in some corner of the house. If the batteries are still working, it will surely give you some good scares when, due to some unexpected movement, it wakes up and speaks to you in his strange language.

Don't throw it away yet even if it has given you many scares and made you think that there are thieves with a whistling voice at home! Furbys, especially the first editions, are sold on eBay for 800-1,000 euros. The rarer your old electronic pet is, the more it may be worth.

Have you ever had a Furby? It's okay, 2 decades ago there was a boom in electronic pets in general. The Furbys were the culmination, but before that there were 2 similar toys that were also a great success.

One of them was the Tamagotchi, that pixelated little egg that you had to take care of until its pet with a strange but endearing design hatched. How many mothers ended up inheriting the Tamagotchi because they couldn't be taken to school? How many emergency beeps sounded inside their bags to warn that the bug had pooped?

And before the Tamagotchi, there were the Digimon. These, although they were also from Bandai, had a more combative component: the owners of the Digimon could put them to fight each other.

Well, on eBay a Tamagotchi can be sold for 500-1,000 euros (as always, it depends on the edition), while Digimon are sold for similar prices. Do you still have any at home?

5. Barbie dolls

When the known universe ends, there will only be 2 things left: stardust and a massive amount of Barbie. This famous Mattel doll emerged in the late 1950s, and is still going strong to this day, despite numerous controversies and parodies.

Like many of the other collectibles on this list, it's normal to think that only the oldest Barbies are the ones worth looking at.

Without going any further, and as Money Inc points out, having an original Barbie (one of those that came out in 1959) means having almost 25,000 potential euros, as long as it is in good condition. And if it's in poor condition, it can be sold for 7,000!

But precisely starting in the 2000s, Mattel launched a range of vintage or special edition Barbies that today can be worth much more than an original doll.

For example, about 17 years ago the Stefani Canturi Barbie (the one in the image above) went on sale. Due to its few units, and the fact that all of it was designed by jewelry designer Stefano Canturi, it has caused that today it costs close to... 300,000 euros!

Since you probably didn't have a Barbie as rare as that, anyway, dig through your drawers for a late 90s/early 2000s doll. The Ferrari Barbie, from the 2000s, sells for 200 -300 euros on eBay (as explained by Family Minded). And a Barbie dressed as an Athenian soldier, released in 2010, currently costs 400-500 euros.