The purpose of this guide will be to help Tonka Toy Truck collectors by sharing information. Collecting these uniquely American vintage toys is an enjoyable and challenging hobby. Many Americans have been doing such for a long time, mainly by making their purchases in person, either at a local yard/garage sales or at major Toy Shows that are held regularly around the country. Thanks to our modern age and technology it's now very easy to do the same thing without ever leaving the comfort of your home, via eBay! This method has it's own unique lessons to be learned and that is what we'll be dealing with here. Collecting Tonkas on eBay.

1.    To begin with we'd like to offer some general computing advice as well. We'll be adding this information to our web site on the resources page soon. Hard lessons recently learned. You absolutely need to use a Firewall and Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware Software. We run Internet Explorer for everything including eBay. We use the new Microsoft Windows Live One Care. It works! It also does everything for you including Firewall setting and use, Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware protection and scanning, automatically scheduled Windows Updates, Computer Maintenance and Backups. In addition we also use SPYBOT SEARCH & DESTROY, which is AWESOME and FREE! More info at spybot.info. SPYBOT SEARCH & DESTROY also has a free tech help forum which helped us to clean and restore our PC, for free ( they do accept donations)! (>Beware of imitators and stay away from spywarebot.com. I repeat, DO NOT USE OR EVEN GO TO spywarebot.com, it has viruses, trojan downloaders, it's a NIGHTMARE, BEWARE!!! And they stole our money and screwed up our PC). For an excellent FREE actual live scan of your PC you should try Pandascan, find it with Google. You can trust this and it works but if you think your machine is clean, be prepared for the harsh truth. Download it, let it run and check the results, it takes a bit.
2.    In order to use ebay correctly, safely and to your best advantage you need to put some things in place. Open a new separate checking account just for eBay. This will allow you to maintain complete separation between eBay and your personal finances. You'll also want to request a debit card for your new account and will use this with PayPal. Change over all your eBay info to your new ebay checking account/debit card. Then, it's time to enroll in PayPal. Once again, use your new ebay checking account and debit card to enroll in PayPal. We recommend that you use a Premier Account and become Confirmed and Verified. There are good reasons for this which you'll discover over time. It may take some time to accomplish all this, the details are on the PayPal web site.
3.    We think you should consider which Tonkas you'd like to collect. There are many different lines of Tonka and few people we know actually collect them all. One of the biggest problems being the space required to store them. Plan ahead.
4.    Next, we'd suggest that you educate yourself about the models you're after. We created a web site, www.tonka-land.com, to aid collectors, but our site only deals with the Tonka lines that we prefer. There are quite a few Tonka web sites these days dealing with many of the individual lines, see our site's resources page for links or Google away! We also started an eBay Community Group and this is a good place to find information and links to other Tonka web sites. Any eBay member is welcome to join the group. It's called TONKALAND and you can find links to it on our ME page, web site, etc. or you can find it in the eBay Community area. Members also share their collections with the world in the free photo album area.
5.    With knowledge of your favorite models at hand you're now ready to start browsing eBay for Tonkas! Here are some tips and advice on finding them. To begin with, we suggest you download and install the eBay Toolbar. This is a very helpful tool which you'll understand better after using. One of the features is the ability to have your favorite searches right at your fingertips. Once you've installed your toolbar, then type < tonka* > into the eBay Toolbar search window. In our experience this is the best way to find the MOST Tonkas listed for auction. You can search from the categories from the main ebay page and a variey of other ways but this will not show you the listings in incorrect categories, etc. Adding the asterisk after the word will include all listings with that word and ANYTHING else after that word, regardless.
6.    Start browsing the listings and as you find the ones your interested in mark them to watch. We suggest that you only deal with sellers that accept PayPal. This offers you the highest level of protection as a buyer. As a new Tonka Collector on eBay, you may find yourself getting excited by all that you find available. On any given day eBay averages 3000 Tonka listings. Our advice at this point is to NOT BUY the first version of any model you find. In fact, we'd recommend that you mark it to watch and then try to find several more and watch them all. Watch them end WITHOUT bidding. Don't panic and don't be fooled. This will NOT BE the ONLY ONE of these you'll find. With few exceptions, all models of Tonka always end up coming up for auction, sooner or later, again. Without fail, the moment you talk your girlfriend into loaning you forty bucks so you can win this really rare model that you'll probably never find again, and then you way overbid for it and exceed your budget...someone else will list TWO of them for half the price the next day. Bide your time and set a spending budget for your collection and each model and DON'T exceed it. If you learn your values and mind your budget, you may end up with an enjoyable and VALUABLE collection.
7.    Keep in mind that not everyone's pictures are the same, nor is every seller's description. Pictures can be very deceiving and we have been surprised more than once after actually receiving the item. What is junk to one seller may be described as very nice by another. Look for listings with multiple clear large pictures of the item. Ask the seller any questions about the item. Again, look for PayPal.
8.    Once you're ready to bid, follow GrandPa's advice: Don't show your cards! (that's from a Pinochle playing guy). The only bid that matters is the HIGH bid and it can be placed at the LAST second. Why would you want to BROADCAST your interest in an item to all the other interested parties, in advance? That will not help you, it will hurt you. Mark it to watch, wait until the end and place your best budgeted HIGH bid. If you win it you've done well. If not, you'll apply your knowledge to the next one and do better, yes?

   More to come as time permits. If you've gained anything here, would you please give us a yes vote for being helpful? Thanx, peace-OUT!  >>>TonkaMike><>

VOTE YES BELOW HERE PLEASE, thanx!