So I have a bunch of these old collectable miniatures that I used to play with in Junior High and High School. My sons get to slowly play with (and destroy) some of dad's ol "Robot toys" but I hold back some old special ones that were my favorites.

A guy in a Facebook group was looking to buy some that I had some spares of - even unopened from back in the day - So I offered to sell and maybe get a few bucks towards a coin or note purchase.

I have an open one too and he asked if it was still clickable/ playable. I tried and it was almost completely seized so I tried to pop it off to loosen it and... this happened.

Yeah... it isn't supposed to come apart... quite like that.

So I told him this and sent him the pic. I can't promise the unopened ones will click because they're unopened but there's your fair disclosure. But I told him if he was still interested in the other two then send the cash and he was still interested.

This got me thinking and joking with my wife about the fact that these things just were not made to last forever - even a bulletproof vest expires after like 5 years. These things were made with cheap plastic and cheap adhesive and cheap paint and they are now 15-20 years old... and that thought stopped me dead in my tracks. 

The minis are 15-20 years old. It has been 15-20 years since I was that kids that spent my weekends in game stores... Wow.

It is a bizarre and disquieting thing to watch bits of your childhood crumble and decay. But yeah... plastic embrittlement can definitely be a thing. I used to have a whole bunch of old plastic handled utensils that my older bother and I used all through our college dorm days but they're almost all gone now - the plastic handles all just snapped one by one and now I'm stuck with 1 oddball knife with all my stainless steel "adulty" silverware.

But, hey! I scored about $40 after costs for something I don't use or particularly "value" anymore.

Most of these things are going to be slowly destroyed and broken by my sons, but it is nice to recover some value from some of them all these years later where I can and use that to fund newer interests.