Toy Aficionado a Boy at Heart

After changing his career goal, Millard E. (Doc) Dokmanus, 41, decided to remain a kid the rest of his life.

To help him toward that end, Dokmanus has toys, trains, games, robots and dolls, many of them antique collectibles, throughout his apartment and garage.

He even has all the toys from his childhood.

“They take me back to easier and simpler times,” he explains.

But more important are the bimonthly antique and collectible toy shows he presents at the Long Beach Elks Club. Each session attracts 1,000 shoppers, he said.

“They provide me with a good living,” said the Seal Beach man, although he was quick to point out, “I have never been into the flash-and-cash lifestyle. I just found something that I liked and other people liked.”

So much so that Dokmanus doesn’t aim to impress anyone with his good fortunes while still holding his telephone company job.

“Everyone seems to be looking for greener pastures,” he said. “Money, money, money. That’s all you hear.”

At first, the Cal State Fullerton graduate thought law was his calling.

“I went to law school for a year but decided it was not for me,” said Dokmanus, a Garden Grove High School graduate. “I changed my mind and dropped out.”

Since then he has worked 14 years keeping company records for General Telephone, “and I kept telling myself I was getting older and should be thinking about things that made me happy.”

Throughout those years he collected, bought and sold toy trains of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, considered the prime years by collectors.

“Collectors would rather have older railroad cars than new ones. They were made better,” said the member of the Orange County chapter of the Toy Train Operating Society, a national group headquartered in Pasadena.

A chance meeting with a friend at a train show developed into his toy shows.

“He knew I was a train guy with an interest in toys so he asked, ‘Why not have your own toy shows,’ ” Dokmanus said. “I told him I was a train guy, but later I thought about it and said to myself, ‘Why not. I’m old enough.’ ” He developed the toy shows featuring old windup tin and cast-iron toys, trains, cars, boats, battery toys, TV toys, comic books and even monster and science-fiction toys.

Toy trains are the smallest part of the show.

“The value of old toys is unbelievable,” he said. “A 1930 toy that sold for 30 cents might be worth $2,000 depending on the toy and its condition.” He said sellers can add another 15% to the price if the toys are in the original boxes and original shipping cartons.

He said people who frequent swap meets, flea markets and garage sales form an underground cult of collectors who are looking to make a a rare collectible toy “find.”

Dokmanus often moans when people admit that they have trashed their old toys.

“I plan on doing these shows until I physically can’t,” he said. “I haven’t felt this good in many years . . . being a kid is an awful lot of fun.”