Not really as a major source of income, or even a secondary one, but you can get some decent returns. that said, given the amount of space and time that you have to factor in, you have to question if its truly that worth it. generally its best if you parlay it as a side thing you're interested in..say you collect toys,a nd buy a few extras of your favorite to keep in box, and you end up reselling them down the road. That's probably more satisfying than sitting on something that may or may not turn a profit.
Very few things from the last 20 years will turn a profit, especially not Western toys. There's two major reason's I'd say; one, everyone caught up on the idea of hoarding things sealed back in the early 90's, so anything from that point onward has a considerable amount of pristine copies available. Before then, people would toss boxes, let figures get scuffed, etc, which is why a lot of those toys became rare and hard to find. second,a lot of the more popular characters get frequent updates and new versions, which eclipses older releases a lot of the time. Both Western and Japanese toys are susceptible to this.With toys past the late 90's, the "retro" appeal isn't really there any more, as it holds with toys from before then.
Basically, people will buy a crappy Han Solo figure from the 70's for big money because it was among the first, or has a place in history due to rarity. But a crappy Han solo figure from 1999 is just another statistic.
anyway, if you want to hedge your bets, pic franchises or characters that are decently popular, but don't get a lot of merchandise toywise, or at least not a lot of merchandise in a given style of toy. For example, Pit from the Nintendoseries Kid Icarus got a single articulated toy a few years back, which now goes for four times the original price. Its very unlikely he'll ever get a new toy anytime soon, so the price will hold.
