No monetary value is going to make up for the fact that it doesn't have the value of memory, the value of play. Toys serve a purpose and play, for a child, is serious business. Children will play even without toys, provided they are emotionally healthy. Toys give kids an opportunity to play, and what they learn is what they do well, what they need to practice. Toys like doll houses help children adopt another person's point of view.
Toys also can be a vehicle to promote relatedness and social exchange.
Toys were crafted by hand, and as a result, children didn't have very many of them, Auerbach said. If they weren't homemade and the family could afford to buy them, the toys might have come from Europe and were beautifully made and detailed. And you'd blow little soap bubbles and light them so they could explode. Up until the 1840s or so, there weren't really any U.S. manufacturers. That was pretty much the capital of toy making for a long, long time, especially mechanical toys.