COLUMBUS, Ohio — Terry Brannon, of Xenia, Ohio, came to Columbus to spend a few hours at the Power Show Ohio. Instead, Brannon attended the 19th annual Ohio Farm Toy & NASCAR Collectibles Show just down the street and left in his small Honda Civic with boxes full of farm toys and accessories. Three-hundred dollars worth of toys to be exact.

“What’s really sad is I once owned the very toys I just purchased,” Brannon said as he was loading his car. “Just as baseball card collectors blame their mom for pitching their cards, I can only blame myself for either losing them or throwing them away when I was much older.”

Brannon has an assortment of replicas, including John Deere, Massey Ferguson, New Holland, Case and Allis-Chalmers.

Baseball card collecting is alive and well, though not as lucrative as it was 20 years ago. Farm toy collectibles, according to Show Manager John Metzger, have showed a steady interest - especially among the younger crowd.

“A lot of kids attend our show and are genuinely interested in the toys,” Metzger said. “The parents still buy them for their kids, but most often they purchase the boys in the $2 to $3 range. We look at toys when we were young and we wish we still had a lot of those toys. Kids making purchases nowadays will be saying the same thing many years down the road.”

Bob Bergefurd, 72, began collecting farm toys when he turned 60.

“If anything attendance at these shows is on the rise,” Bergefurd said. “A lot of the older folk like me are reminiscing their old days.”

Bergefurd doesn’t deal with new toys, just relics that remind him of the past.

On the other hand, Jerry Cline, of Piqua, Ohio has gotten away from his baseball card collection and spending more time with farm toys. His great grandfather farmed in west central Ohio in the early 1900s. He uses the hobby as a way of connecting with his past.

“Baseball cards are still popular, but they’ve become saturated with too many manufacturers and they’re simply too expensive,” Cline said. “I used to buy a pack of 15 cards for a quarter and it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to complete a 600-card set. Today, it’s very expensive and driving the young people away.

“With the farm toys I can get a few farm-related items for as cheap as a few bucks, with varying scales of farm toys. I’m still holding on to the cards, but I’ve found a collectible that is appealing to young and old alike, and at a reasonable price.”

But is there a “Babe Ruth” or “Honus Wagner” among the farm toys?

“Some farm toys may fetch a high price due to their age or condition, much more than others,” Cline added, “but with these farm toys anything from one’s childhood days could be classified as priceless. These things bring back a lot of memories.”

Reasonable price perhaps, but that may depend on what you purchase. Last year at this same show, a peddle tractor sold for $1,500.

According to Metzger, people of all ages collect the farm toys and those over 50 have found a lasting hobby.

“I had these toys when I was a kid, but I didn’t save a single one of them,” Bergefurd said. “Girls and cars caught my attention and the toys went away. Now I’m back with the toys.”