Photography by Lauren Allen.
“Watches, coins, stamps, guitars, you name it.”
Shaun Neinast’s father was a devoted collector of many things, hence why Neinast has been collecting for what seems to be his whole life. He started tagging along to collector’s conventions and expos as a child.
He took on his father’s collect-it-all attitude, amassing comic books, baseball cards and toys.
Growing up in Lakewood, Neinast was already a budding entrepreneur. Instead of the run-of-the-mill lemonade stand, he opted to set up a baseball card trading stand on his street.
“My dad’s walking down the grass hill, and then he’s like, ‘Hey, what’s going on down here?’ I’m like, ‘Dad, trust me, I know what I’m doing,’” Neinast says. “The guy hands me 80 bucks in 20s. He’s like, ‘OK, he knows what he’s doing.’”
He says he was one of the top 10 eBay sellers in the state at 12 years old, and continued to collect, trade and sell toys as he got older.
Neinast went to college and earned dual degrees in marketing and business management. He spent a few months working in a corporate office downtown, but says by the time he was offered a parking spot, it was time to go.
“I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna play with toys again,’” Neinast says.
Dallas Vintage Toys opened in 2007 in Lakewood selling collectible prototypes, comic books, retro video games and toys, of course. The business moved locations a few times before landing in a business park off Plano Road and Forest Lane. The new, 10,222-square-foot space has two showrooms, office space, repair areas and a large warehouse-ish storage area in the back Neinast likens to the warehouse from Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Sitting in his back office like the Great and Powerful Oz, Neinast is surrounded by encased sneakers, Gremlins prototypes straight from the studio and vintage comic books. His desk is littered with action figure legs, O-rings, torsos and heads that will soon be rebuilt to life as He-Man, Boba Fett and more.
After close to 20 years at Dallas Vintage Toys, he’s built a reputation for his expertise and inventory. People have visited from Australia, Mexico and Puerto Rico, occasionally asking for a picture with Neinast.
“It’s just cool, like meeting people from all over the world,” he says. “We’ve had celebrities. We’ve sold to the owner of the New York Yankees. We bought stuff from Leonardo DiCaprio.”
They may ask to take pictures with Neinast, but visitors come for Dallas Vintage Toys’ inventory.
The shop specializes in collectibles from the 1960s through the present. In the second showroom, which is guarded by a full-scale replica of Castle Grayskull from He-Man, rows of display cases boast Dallas Vintage Toys’ most valuable products. Graded by collectible brokers like Collectible Grading Authority, the merchandise comes encased in plastic display boxes with cards verifying authenticity and condition.
In the graded room, rare collector’s items like the 1983 Kenner Star Wars SEE-THREEPIO (C-3PO) prototype come with price tags stretching well into the thousands. The Holy Grail is perhaps the 1979 Kenner Prototype Action Figure Rocket-Firing Boba Fett, one of only seven authenticated figures.
“We sell stuff from a nickel to tens of thousands of dollars,” Neinast says. “We try not to advertise expensive stuff.”
More approachable prices can be found in the main showroom. Lined with action figures, replica vehicles, comic books, board games and other toys, the room is decorated with names from iconic franchises like Batman, The Avengers and Transformers, which he says are the most popular collections. The shop also features a large collection of vintage Barbie dolls.
Before COVID, Dallas Vintage Toys sourced much of its inventory from manufacturers and distributors. That’s changed, Neinast says.
“Our wholesale cost is like $23.80 plus shipping. It would be cheaper for us to go buy it at a big box store,” he says. “So we’re kind of going back to our roots, where we buy almost 90 plus percent from the general public.”
Operating like something straight out of an episode of Pawn Stars, Neinast and the rest of the Dallas Vintage Toys staff use their wealth of expertise to judge the authenticity, condition and collectibility of merchandise coming through the door.
“A lot of people know me, I don’t rip anyone off,” he says. “I’ve had several stories where they came in wanting $150, and we ended up paying $9,500 because they might have more stuff, or they might have friends that have stuff.”
He admits his knowledge is more limited on newer items, which is where he relies on his staff.
Neinast says he looks for rarity when evaluating merchandise, especially in cases where parts are commonly missing in most surviving examples.
“The pieces I’m more interested in, it’s like this antenna is always missing, or this flashlight, or this part is always missing, and you have it,” he says. “So I mean, that makes me happy, because that can complete something and someone else will be happy because the same toy parts are always missing or always broken.”
Dallas Vintage Toys will celebrate its 20th anniversary in a few years. Collecting has come a long way since those days selling baseball cards, Neinast says.
“When I first started doing this, this was not cool, this was not mainstream,” he says. “Kids were like, trying to beat me up in elementary school or junior high but now it’s mainstream. Everyone’s doing it. Yeah, that’s super cool.”
