Curious Things

Is this place still in business? It’s 2:00pm on a Thursday … the store is stocked like it is in business but it’s all dark and locked up, even though hours at the front door say it should be open. Phone number listed on Unilocal is disconnected. Only place around that has what I need and I can’t even figure out if it is in business or not.

I would recommend this store to most people looking for old collectable toys from the last 30 years.
At least half of the store is hot wheels. If that is your thing, you will be in heaven. For me, I kept walking to the 2 back rooms filled with toys from the 80s and 90s and a little of the 2000s. Mostly in the box.
I’ve bought a number of Simpsons action figures. I considered buying new kids on the block barbies for my sister. They also had all of the 18″ MontyPython figures.
The owner is very friendly and willing to cut a deal if possible. As far as I can tell, this is the best toy collectables shop on the peninsula.

Alex is tops! Great service and selection. If he doesn’t have what you’re looking for, he’ll try to find it for you. Prices are more then fair. I always end up staying in there for more than an hour looking around. LOL

Great place to get your toys. If you are in the area, stop on by…

this is a super cool store with all things vintage… think avengers, x-​men, fantastic four, transformers, and other super heroes. they also have a large selection of hot wheels and other items that you can’t find in toy stores in this day and age. i will say that the prices are pretty steep, as i’ve seen price tags range from $ 25 – 50, to even more for a single character. if you are a fan of classic toys and characters, then this is your playground. conveniently located in downtown redwood city.
tips: come in the afternoon, as they’re only open in the afternoons from monday-​saturday, closed on sundays. on occasion, they may close before the posted closing time of 5pm, so make sure to come well before then if you want to shop.

I love this place hot wheels galore. If you like to collect hot wheels or matchbox this is the place. You can find limited edition cars that you can’t find in target or Walmart.
A great place to check out and Alex is super nice.

My poor five year old had saved his pre-​K graduation money and we drove over to Curious Things after hearing from other local friends that they have a much wider selection of Skylanders and he knew exactly who he wanted to pick. We arrived at 10:30 a.m. and saw the store hours were 1 – 5 on weekdays. But he saw who he wanted in the window of the store so he was very excited! We killed time, played, had lunch, and came back at 1:30. Store’s still not open. Got ice-​cream, checked back at a 2:30. Still not open. Did one more drive by at 3 and still not open so we gave up. He ended up buying a Skylander at Target, though had really wanted one from this store. Seemed to be cool place with a lot of unique things and collectibles but what a huge bummer.

***Curious Things is a great store if you like die cast cars; they have an incredible selection that is pretty well organized; their prices are also very reasonable***
Curious Things immediately reminded me the very simply named Toys Sports Cards (also located south of San Francisco; that store can be found in Cupertino’s Vallco Shopping Mall). Like Toys Sports Cards, Curious Things features a near obsessive collection of action figures and die cast cars. While there are many toy shops like Puzzle Zoo that cater to adults and collectors, the selection you find at those places cannot compete with Curious Things or Toys Sports Cards.
Curious Things features a collection of die cast cars that looks like it took a very long time to build. There are many selections that are long off the market and no longer in production. They are the kind of toys that you could probably only find on eBay (and some of them probably could not even be found on eBay).
Even if you found some of these cars on eBay, you definitely would not get them at Curious Thing’s very reasonable prices. Many of the die cast cars are at or just above the current retail price of Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars (Curious Things features mostly Hot Wheels, but you will find a good number of Matchbox cars too). Even the older and very-​hard-​to-​find die cast cars go around $ 5 and those same styles tend to run $ 15-​$ 25 online.
Curious Things primarily showcases die cast cars, but they carry a decent variety of action figures including an impressive selection of McFarlane and McFarlane-​esque sports figures.
Curious Things and Toys Sports Cards both feature a selection of toys that go far and above any retail stores I have been to (when it comes to toys). Curious Things though tops Toys Sports Cards in a few ways. As I mentioned, the prices at Curious Things are very reasonable and even more price friendly than Toys Sports Cards (some similar Toys Sports Cards items seem to run $ 1-​$ 3 more than Curious Things).
Curious Things also features a much cleaner and nicer layout. And despite the unbelievable amount of selection, the store is pretty well organized, which is very unlike Toys Sports Cards where you really have to dig to find great stuff.
Service at Curious Things was good – quick and friendly.
If you are a fan of die cast cars, Curious Things is a must visit. For some things, their selection is better than what you will find at Amazon and eBay and their prices are much more reasonable.
This shop is located along a nice retail street in Redwood City, which seems to get a good amount of foot traffic. If you search, you can probably find metered street parking. There is also a pay parking structure located nearby.

I love this place as much for the atmosphere as for the toys. The wife (rightly so) discourages me from buying but I love to browse.
This overheard conversation made me an instant fan.
Customer «Do you have the original Luke Skywalker still?»
Store guy «I do, what have you brought to trade?»
Customer (a bit sheepishly) «I have the Lando and a Greedo»
Store guy (shaking his head with sadness) «No not today. Come back again when you are ready for a Luke».
Customer «Ok, I know, see you next week»
I am sure I am also not ready. ;)
Except for the weird hours, which might be a plus in some ways, I love this unique toy store. Go here, browse, but understand you too might not be worthy of that awesome toy from yesteryear you see on the shelf.

When I came into Curious Things, I thought it was an antiques market. Oh, well, Around Me may be wrong sometimes, but it’s okay because this was a really pleasant detour.
There are four rooms at Curious Things: the left and right front rooms, and the two smaller back rooms. The front left room contains new in package Marvel and DC superhero figurines, Hotwheels (especially the vehicles from the Cars franchise), and some PEZ dispensers. The right front room is comprised of a mix of new old stock (NOS) packaged memorabilia (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc) and loose stuff — including and especially fast-​food toy premiums. Lots of McDonald’s stuff from the past twenty-​plus years, certainly, but also smaller chains like Jack-​In-​The-​Box and Carl’s Jr. There are also cars in this room, but it is the other memorabilia that stuck with me, especially the stuff in the glass cabinets. There are many different franchises represented in this room. At the register, there are tons of other cases, mostly of Hotwheels and Disney items. The aisles are a bit narrow for my tastes, but everything is clean, well-​marked, dusted, and kept in coherent groupings. This is a huge boon for a place like this!
The back two rooms are a mélange of all kinds of other franchises, including but in no way limited to: NASCAR, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, politics, ALF, TMNT, Pacman (and Ms. Pacman), and… The Tick! In fact, it was The Tick that impressed me the most, because they carried off-​the-​shelf NOS items as well as toy premiums, from the animated series, the comic, and the live-​action series. Since I didn’t buy the bilingual French/​English mint-​in-​box (that’s MIB for all the non-​hopeless-​figuregeeks) talking two-​foot Tick doll (excuse me, action figure), you should stop by and snap it up. What did I leave with? An amazing loose find from a box in the very back room — a wheeled Tick fast-​food premium of The Tick himself stuck in one of evil El Seed’s flowerpots. Yeah, you are so jealous right now.
In addition to this tiny, bobbing Tick with corn coming out of his ears (curse you, El Seed!), I also left with some awesome assistance. The owner carries the collections of several excellent professional collectors in the area, on the idea of an antiques mall but on a way smaller scale. I met not only the owner but one of the pro collectors, the guy who collected not only all 101 McDonald’s dalmatians, but the entire Disney cinema magic set (Little Mermaid was the hardest to find, said he), or whatever it’s called. He showed me the eBay auction where he sold a tiny Hotwheels car he had found during a picking expedition for over six thousand dollars. Point being, these people do not mess around. If you are looking for a figural nerdy something, especially in fast-​food premiums or toy cars, you should really come here. Richard (the pro collector) gave me a lot of helpful advice about how to go about finding the Tick set I was really after, and said he’d scout it for me if I couldn’t find it. Sure enough, I found it — his advice was friendly, helpful, and awesome. I really recommend this place. It’s clean, as I said, well-​lit, well-​organized, and isn’t just for die-​hard collectors; there were several little kids who came in to buy Matchbox cars while I was in there, as well as some grown-​ups. It’s not pretentious, and it is just a really fun place to while away an hour or two. SPOON!!!

Are you looking for a specific hot wheel, Star Wars figure, Marvel Figure or Transformer? Then this place may be for you.
The selection is pretty big considering the size of the store. If you are paying in cash the owner will cut you a deal on what you are buying. The guy is pretty friendly and knows his stuff.
The only downside I can think of is the store hours. The store doesn’t open until the afternoon.

This place is great. We stopped by after a movie. It has all best toys you can think off. Were into some of the older marvel figures and a few other lines.
Star wars classics and current. Sports figures, disney, movie toys, various die cast cars and of course Marvel and DC figures.
We pick up a VHTF apocalypse MU figure and he hook us up with BAF pieces to complete a bigger figure we had at home. Way cheaper then eBay considering shipping prices.
Def going back, my son now wants to go all the time.
Owner was cool too.

I really can’t say enough about the toy car selection here. It’s a tiny place, but they’ve got more cars than I’ve seen at Toys R Us, and the cars are cool! My 3 year old son loves Herbie and the Pixar Cars movie. I not only found Fred, the rusty little car there, but also they had Herbie! There’s a combo of collectibles and non collectibles so be careful if you set your child loose in the store. You might end up prying a 15 dollar toy car out of his hands. In this case, I bought Herbie, and my boy completely loves him.
Definitely call if you’re making a special trip there. They seem to do a lot of business online, and the hours are limited

This place rocks! Both my husband and 2 year old love it. They have a 50 cent bin with loose cars in it that’s awesome for my son and doesn’t break the bank. The prices on everything seem really reasonable and the selection is great.

We go here all the time. They have everything old and new. The guys that work there are GREAT!!! They answer all of our questions and give great advise on what to buy… their not there to push you into buying anything there not like that. My daughter loves going there and there great with her… we have become regulars lol. I can’t stress enough how great these guys are that work there and the prices vary. Sometimes it’s cheaper than eBay which is a shock. We all love this store :)

This little cool store carries a shitload of action-​figure, die-​cast cars and other novelty items west of the Mississippi. Many of the hard to find items are rare and antique. And also, this store also carries the newest items.
One aisle of the store has Die cast cars including Hot Wheels, Matchbox and bigger miscellaneous scale-​model cars are sold here.
Another aisle has action-​figures/​figurines from stars of all professional sports, NASCAR, movie Characters (Star Wars, Star Trek…) and Marvel and DC Comics. And yes, they have plenty of Captain America’s action-​figures and bigger figurines for sale that you don’t find anywhere that is not E-​Bay. One of the companies has a rating of my second-love’s superhero. The package recited his history, strength, and weakness that I don’t know.
The price range is from $ 10.00 to even $ 100.00 for a rare one. You also can trade your items for other items or received cash. When I get paid, I’ll buy whatever Captain America’s items they have in-​stock. For any store that carry Captain America item, they will get
«5 Captain America Star!!»