They may be small but the toys Farahdinah Samsuddin collects have a special place in her heart.
Whenever she is faced with a problem, Farahdinah would clean her toys to distract herself. The 18-year-old has over 50 toys in her collection. Cleaning the toys also give her a sense of satisfaction whenever she sees they are neatly placed on top of her shelves.
“Whenever someone takes away my toys, tears will roll down my cheeks,” said Farahdinah, a second-year School of Sports, Health and Leisure student. “These things are precious to me and I spent a lot of effort to get them. It is something I hold onto dearly.”
Farahdinah was 16 when she first started collecting toys. She bought a ‘Lego Mystery Blind Bag’ from the Batman comic franchise which contained a random Lego piece. Lego reminded Farahdinah of her childhood, and she would visit a Lego store near her workplace whenever she was free.
“I would go there just to browse over the Lego sets that I would want to buy once I get my pay. I went there frequently, even the workers there knew me,” Farahdinah said. Marvel and DC Lego sets are her favourites.
Farahdinah will use her own money to purchase the toys as her parents are not fully supportive of her hobby. “Their (my parent) main concern was they feel that I am wasting my money,” she said.
Farahdinah adheres to a strict rule. “Usually when there is something new or something that I want, I told myself to not exceed $50,” she said. “But if I have extra money then I won’t spend more than $100.”
Her prized collection is a $200 Doctor Strange Sanctum Lego set. But Farahdinah says she prefers collecting older version of Lego sets because she found them nostalgic. The prices for the toys are high since they are not in the market anymore. So far, she has spent over $1,000 on her toy collection.
Farahdinah says she tries not to buy toys online for fear of being scammed. “I do not regret buying online even though it is expensive,” she said. “But sometimes, when I see the item being sold at a cheaper price, it hurts a bit.”
