APPRAISER: So tell me what you brought in today.

GUEST: Well, I brought in today my, uh, battery-operated toy space station.

I've had it for 60 years.

I'm the original owner of it.

My dad gave it to me for Christmas when I was about eight years old in the early '60s.

APPRAISER: Did you play with it much?

GUEST: Uh, you know, I did, although when I was a kid, D cell batteries were kind of hard to come by in our house.

(laughing) APPRAISER: Yeah.

GUEST: So I played with it, but it didn't run a lot.

APPRAISER: The reason I ask is, it's a relatively fragile toy, uh, and it looks like it's complete and all the pieces are here, and it's in relatively good shape.

You don't happen to have the box that it came in, do you?

GUEST: I do not have the box.

I had some interesting toys, but I was never a box keeper.

(laughs) APPRAISER: What we have here is a Japanese 1960s space toy.

It's a refueling station, uh, which is quite unusual.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: More oftentimes, we'll see rocket ships, satellite dishes.

Space travel was very popular for 1960s.

This one is made by a company called Waco, and they're made out of tinplate with lithography.

So they're colorful and flashy.

Uh, so it is quite rare.

When grading an antique toy like this, there are really two considerations to be had.

Condition and rarity-- you have both here.

Uh, this is a rare toy, and it's in really nice condition.

Could you show me how it works?

GUEST: Certainly.

(whirring) This is the revolving movement, it, uh...

It's raised up on a little jack foot, turns around a few times, and then it drops down and goes onto wheels and moves around.

APPRAISER; That's great.

GUEST: It was a lot of fun to watch when I was a kid.

(chuckles) APPRAISER: Great piece.

GUEST: Thank you.

APPRAISER: Very cool.

GUEST: Thank you.

APPRAISER: With these mid-'60s Japanese toys, uh, there's a lot of value placed for collectors in the box itself.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Um, some collectors actually consider themselves to be box collectors more than toy collectors.

GUEST: (chuckles) APPRAISER: But given that the toy is as rare as it is, I'm sure it would be a welcome addition to any collection.

The value is probably somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 as is.

Should it have had the box, we could probably triple that value...

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: ...and get it somewhere near $10,000.

GUEST: Wow.

I'm glad to hear that.

I've been proud to own it and, uh, pleased to still have it.