TOY STORY, THE EARLY YEARS: At the 24th annual Florida Toy Soldier Show, These toy soldiers came ready to fight — but time is running out on their value:

Anybody interested in larger-scaled obliteration of the human race could visit the table of retired University of Maryland business school professor Jim Spina, who was selling a mint-in-box Gilbert Atomic Energy Laboratory set from the early 1950s.

The lab, made by a company that specialized in sciency playthings like chemistry sets, was created at the behest of the U.S. government’s Atomic Energy Commission, which “wanted to prove nuclear energy was so safe you could play with it at home,” said Spina, chuckling mordantly.

The lab — complete with four radioactive ores! — sold for $50 when it was new, not exactly a budget toy. (Gasoline was 14 cents a gallon, to give you a sense of scale.) But Spina was asking $7,500 for his, and seemed pretty confident he’d get it. “I’ve had a lot of interest,” he said. “But you’ve got to find the right guy.” And how to tell the right guy? “The one with $7,500 to spend,” Spina explained with the canny instincts of a business-school professor.

Heh, indeed.

(H/T: Virginia Postrel.)