Kitahara should know. He owns 200,000 matchbook covers, 1500 posters, countless assorted items of advertising and 60,000 toys, including legions of kewpie dolls, squadrons of tin airplanes, zeppelins, cars and enough robots to colonize a planet. Apart from his own collection, he runs a one-man industry, producing reproductions (which themselves become expensive collectibles), plus museums and giftshops, glossy photo books and videos. Yet he claims he's not a materialist.

"I've changed my thinking in the past few years," says Kitahara, who is best known for his weekly appearances on the television show Nandemo Kanteidan (Anything Appraised, TV Tokyo, Tuesdays at 9pm). On screen, as collector extraordinaire, he pronounces the value of items brought in by anxious audience members. "I used to think being a collector meant making things yours. Now I realize my collections will continue long after I'm gone. I'm really only here to appreciate and watch over them."

Until a decade ago, Kitahara, a youthful-looking 48-year-old, still ran his parents' ski shop in Kanda, although his fascination with tin toys began when he was a student. "I went to Austria on a ski tour when I was 20, and was amazed by how the people there really valued old things. They had a respect for things from the past . . . they were proud to cook in the same pots their grandmothers did."

Late '60s Japan, according to Kitahara, was the polar opposite. The country was already in a race with the West, tossing away fine items in favor of the latest occidental luxuries, heedless of the spirit which craftsmen, designers and previous users imbued them with.

"The concept of the Japanese `economic animal' is partly accurate," he says with some rue. "It's because after the war we started with nothing." He began his collection by decorating his room with antique clocks; his youth was spent sifting through seikatsu kotto (second-hand shops) and sodai gomi (large trash), and his money on entire lots of dead stock from ma-and-pa toy stores--still in their boxes and practically worthless. But years later the trash filling the warehouse of the family ski shop soared in value, thanks to the sudden sentimental acquisitiveness of bubble Baby Boomers. A `Made in Occupied Japan' Betty Boop doll which cost him ¥500, he relates gleefully, is now fetching ¥2 million.

His collection spans from the Meiji Period ("lots of imitations") to the present ("I've got a complete set of McDonald's free gifts"). Among the prewar toys are myriad armored cars, battleships and items of war bearing the hinomaru. Wartime dolls are all ethnically Japanese and toys are made of paper, reflecting the metal shortage. Postwar tin toys are flashy, aimed at the export market, and often based on Western movies and sci-fi. Don't let Kitahara hear you calling them cheap. "The idea that Japan was a low-quality producer after the war is a lie," he says. "Only the labor was cheap. That's one reason people collect them today."

With two museums (Toys Club in Yokohama, and a newer and larger Antique Toy World Museum in Kanagawa-ken), Kitahara's collection leads the world, and celebrities drop in regularly. In fact, the idea for the movie Toy Story came when the director visited Kitahara and his Toys Club.

Kitahara's pronouncements on Nandemo Kanteidan affect collectibles markets internationally, and he could certainly boost the value of his own collection if he was inclined. "When I'm on the show I only tell the prices¥ other collectors pay," he responds. "There is value in everything, even in what some people might consider garbage. In the past, the items that people recognized value in were limited--art and antiques. But now the sense has been widened to include disposable, mass-produced things. It all depends on what the purchaser is willing to pay." Collecting, he says, is still a hobby for him and practically all his money goes into it. "Once I get something, I never let it go," he states. "I never sell."

Meanwhile the relationship between him and his toys has become almost karmic. "It's ongaeshi--you help and you're helped later. I had the ability to really appreciate toys and I devoted my life to them. In return, they've given me so much--without them there are so many places I couldn't have gone to and so many people I couldn't have met."

Toys Club is located at 239 Yamatecho, Naka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa-ken (by the Foreigners' Cemetery (Gaijin Bochi)). Open 10am-8pm, daily. Admission; ¥200 for adults/¥100 for children. (045-621-8710)

Antique Toy World Museum is located at Ai World Shokuhin Seikatsukan, 3F, 4-1-2 Chuo, Sagamihara-shi, Kanagawa-ken (10 min. on foot from JR Sagamihara Station). Open 10Am-8pm, daily (but sometimes closed Tuesdays-call). Admission ¥600 for adults/¥300 for children. (0427-56-1717)