What resources do YOU use for IDing toys?

[EricaVee]

I'm curious as to where others look when searching for a toy. For me it's usually endless Googling, or Flickr--but I know there must be better options. What's your favorite resource? Got any tips for searching? I'd love to hear!

[zap18]

Honestly, this website!  It's my first go-to.  Then I google, or comb through ebay.  I also consider asking at forums, like Off Topic at the arena, but so far I haven't actually *used* that as a resource... I just know I could.  Ebay is usually my best bet for IDing something, and Google is usually where I try and find more details (with limited success).

My sister has used Ebay to start building some pretty comprehensive Barbie and Kelly guides for our personal use.

[zuse]

Another site I used but haven't been to in awhile is http://plushmemories.com/blog/

It's good for those random plush animals. I used to would just scroll through there and see if anything looked familiar. (Not search for anything specific).

[BattySparkles]

I do lots of googling and yahooing and if that fails I come here.

[Ghost Of The Doll]

When researching for toys I want to add I always start with Google and it usually points me into eBay or another auction site. I spend quite a bit of time trawling though new and old sales for information and images, then do some more specific Google searches and usually come up with some well hidden personal collection pages and random/weird sales sites!

When trying to ID toys I work in the same way and check out the Google images search using various key words until something pops up and leads me on. I can't say I use any specific toys sites much to start off with so it will be interesting to know how you all search for unknown toys.

I'd like to create a better links page, so maybe I could start up a board for that too? Then I could add the best of them into my main Links page for others to use. Hmm... 

[EricaVee]

That would be awesome! I've had the experience of Googling for hours and hours and then later finding a well-hidden but comprehensive site about the exact toy I was looking for.  It seems to me like some of the really good sites somehow aren't in the Google directory or something, since I tend to find them through people linking them on other site.

[BattySparkles]

Oh! Iunno why I didn't say it in my last post, but I have found flickr to actually be really useful. Probably even a better resource than googling for me.

[EricaVee]

I second flickr, although sometimes when people don't know what they have it's hard to do a text search. But all that means is browsing through tons of pictures of people's collections, which is of course really fun. 

Oh, and I've decided that the best way to ID a toy is to give up and try to ID someone else's toy. I nearly always find what I'm looking for while I'm searching for other people's toys, or just not actively looking for my own.

[BattySparkles]

I should have phrased that differently because flickr hasn't actually helped me ID anything. I've had luck finding other pictures of toys I want ID'd there, which is useful. But I go there just to look at toys and have ended up having a bit of luck finding things I'd want ID'd.