The pieces you have are quite nice. Its too bad that they didn't end up being worth thousands. That seems to be the way though for a lot of these special edition items. I think the issue is that too many are produced so there is no scarcity. If a person can go to a store to buy one then there is little reason to buy one second hand for more money. Investing in objects, even artwork, is very difficult for that reason and a bit of a gamble. In the end I think what matters is that you enjoy the items and get some sort of pleasure from having them and displaying them.
One powerful emotion to tap into for investing in objects though is nostalgia. People will pay a lot for items that they had as a child which they had a strong connection to. They are usually hard to find as well. I wish I was one of those kids that kept all of my toys in the original packaging and never played with them... but alas, I was not one of those children. 😂😂 knowing what nostalgic items will become investment pieces is also difficult though.
I'm sure you had many happy times playing with your toys, and doubt you knew of the word investment back then!! So at least you have those nice memories to hold on to,
The limited edition pieces were limited to members which was open to anyone to joined, so it wasn't limited really. I even saw some second hand dealers say on their website that they're currently not buying limited edition pieces from people because they have so much in stock!! Looks like I'm not the only person trying to flog my collection.
I had teenage mutan ninja turtles as a kid and as I remember, I found them very challenging to play with - like I didn't have the imagination to smash them together and pretend they were fighting. Lol. But also, keeping them in the packaging never even crossed my mind.