Drywall dust and a Best of Langley sweep

Less than an hour before the 2014 Best of Langley awards, Matthew Purdy was bent over the bathroom sink of a near-empty storefront, washing drywall dust out of his hair. That's how Roxanne Hooper opened her Langley Advance column that August.

He cleaned up in time. Readers voted Toy Traders best toy store and best collectibles store that year, and it won most fun place to shop as well. Purdy, then 39, owned Toy Traders and GameStars. He'd just gone public with a big expansion timed for his 40th birthday and the store's 20th anniversary.

The store opened in 1995. "When I started that old store, it was a little too big," Purdy told the paper. He found that hard to believe by then.

In 2014 he was almost tripling his floor space, moving into a 14,000-square-foot unit in the strip mall just south, between Nature's Fare and Princess Auto. He was building a life-sized Star Wars probe droid for it, plus a Han Solo in carbonite photo booth to keep his C-3PO and R2-D2 company.

A diorama habit that got out of hand

These days the store says it's nearly 20,000 square feet, with more than 100 displays and dioramas holding 10,000 figures. Its About page says 17,000 square feet. Either way, bring comfy shoes.

The display list the store posted reads like a kid's wish list. There's a 13-foot superhero city with hundreds of heroes and villains mid-battle, and a Masters of the Universe scene with a 13-foot Snake Mountain. A 7-foot-8 Optimus Prime keeps watch. One reviewer who'd been to Midtown Comics in New York said Toy Traders "triumphs all of them with the decor and the collection of items in their store."

Another visitor admitted it was "mentally hard to leave the store." We get it.

Trade it in for Trader Bucks

There's a trade department too. Bring in new or used toys and collectibles, and you can leave with in-store credit the store calls Trader Bucks. They never expire, and they're tax-free.

Call before you haul anything in, though. Only some items qualify, and the store wants the right specialist on hand to look at them. The trade counter sits to the right of the main entrance and runs Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., shorter hours than the store itself.

Don't look for a web shop. Toy Traders doesn't sell online or ship, and it says that's how it keeps its prices competitive.

Lincoln Logs and the Magic Eight Ball

Purdy still keeps a close eye on what families want. Before Christmas 2024 he told the Langley Advance Times that classic toys were selling again. "The traditional things again are really big," he said. His own daughter loves the Magic Eight Ball, except when it gives her an answer she doesn't like.

Some things never change. "Hot Wheels is always steady, LEGO is always steady," he said. He's also seen board games and puzzles stay popular since the pandemic.

Through all the growth, he told the paper back in 2014, one thing mattered most to him. "The important thing for me, as the store keeps growing, that we keep the fun warm atmosphere of the store."

Sources: Langley Advance Times (Roxanne Hooper, Aug. 31, 2014; Matthew Claxton, Dec. 11, 2024), toytraders.ca (home, About, Displays & Dioramas and Trade Department pages, Oct. 2026), Generation X-Wing podcast (episodes 85 and 86, Oct. 2016, show notes), Google reviews (via live post).