Anastasia Andrzejewski
President, George’s Toy Chest, LLC
Anastasia is a successful ecommerce entrepreneur, with a specialty in antique and vintage items (particularly toys), selling on a variety of platforms including ebay, Amazon and etsy.
She is also proud to be a leader in the ecommerce community. She created the first ebay sellers Meetup group in New York City and has taken over leadership of a ecommerce Meetup group for New York’s Hudson Valley. In addition, she has been cited by and featured in various media, and has been hand-picked to participate in small and select focus groups, such as one with Richelle Parham (the Chief Marketing Officer at ebay) and the first summit for ebay Meetup Organizers held at ebay’s San Jose campus. She is currently in the process of becoming an ebay Education Specialist which will empower her to share the power of ebay with others.
Anastasia has a master’s degree in Women’s Studies and History from Exeter College at Oxford University and a bachelor’s degree in History from Barnard College, Columbia University. While she’s had a lifelong appreciation for all things old, she developed a keen interest in and understanding of the importance of pop culture ephemera when writing her master’s dissertation, Female Freaks: The Construction, Exhibition, and Objectification of Gender and Disability in the Nineteenth-Century English Freak Show.
While Anastasia enjoyed studying history, she didn’t set out to “sell” history. However, “selling” has been in Anastasia’s DNA from early on. She was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug at a young age–somewhere around the age of six years old or so. In fact, here’s an image of one of her first business cards:
And now, fast forward three decades, she is delighted with the path she has taken and is thrilled to be an ecommerce entrepreneur and connecting people with treasured collectibles (sometimes even long lost family treasures!) and proud to do her part in keeping some small pieces of history alive.
Anastasia is an avid collector and has amassed quite a collection of both Smurfs and Dolly Parton memorabilia. She admires all sorts of antiques and collectibles, especially those of mid-century modern design.
George Andrzejewski
Executive Vice President, George’s Toy Chest, LLC
George is a retired teacher who spent most of his career teaching earth science and chemistry in Dobbs Ferry, NY but also had a very interesting four year stint teaching at the Tororo Girls’ School in Tororo, Uganda in the late 1960’s. Now, in his retirement (or maybe better termed, his “second childhood”), George is excited to have a second career with George’s Toy Chest, which builds on his keen interest in antiques and history.
George fondly remembers playing with dimestore toy soldiers as a young boy in Newark, NJ and then amassing quite a collection of Barclays, Manoils, Grey Irons, Britains and others as an adult. Now, he is thrilled to have a business where he gets to immerse himself in his passion for collecting toy soldiers and vintage toys.
In addition to toy soldiers, George is an avid stamp collector and student of history, particularly history related to Poland and World War II. George is a graduate of Seton Hall University and received his master’s degree from the University of New Hampshire.