Retro treasure: Butler County man shares his love for old toys with TV show “Hunting Nostalgia”
Nick Bartley didn't originally think of himself as a toy collector.
But since childhood, he's considered the way he treats his toys to be different. While his siblings regularly got rid of their old toys at garage sales, Bartley said he always knew “the items I had, I wanted to keep forever.”
“I still have the very first wrestling toy I ever had, ever: Captain Lou Albano,” he said, holding up the action figure from a box. “I knew that I wanted to try and pass it down to my kids and get them interested.”
His massive toy collection once took up the majority of his basement, and now decorates the boxes and shelves of the filming studio he is creating in his Middlesex home.
That studio is the site of filming for “Hunting Nostalgia,” the television and YouTube show Bartley hosts on Armstrong Neighborhood Channel 100.
On Hunting Nostalgia, a project he began in March of 2020, Bartley shows off the toys he's amassed over the years, visits retro toy stores and conventions, and shares the stories of other collectors and people he meets in the process.
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