January Japanese Transformers

The good thing about purchasing Japanese Transformers is that they have specified release dates, so you know when something is going to come out. The supplier I currently use in Japan is also very quick in getting a parcel out the door - early morning payment request and late afternoon/early evening ship. This results in a parcel arriving from Japan within days of the toy being released in Japan.

This months releases are part of the Legends line in Japan, continuing on with releasing more Generations toys with very slight changes to the decoration over the American release.

First up, the two pack of the Legends/Scout figures Swerve and Tailgate with their respective Targetmaster partners. The decoration on both figures has been darkened, while Tailgate has also lost the strange blue that was present on the American release and both of these improvements are welcome additions to the toys. The Targetmasters have also changed but as I am not a fan of the *master idea, these figures/weapons will be heading to the parts drawer.

The second and final release is the first Headmaster released in the on-going "CHUG" lineup of toys, Brainstorm. Sporting additional and much needed paint applications around the chest, this figure looks fantastic but is someone ruined by being a Headmaster (a concept I am not at all fond off - robots need their own heads) and a very simple Transformation - arms and legs both unfold, the hands and feet flip out, the nose cone ends up on the back of the robot and the head is attached. The previously mentioned Legends have harder transformations.

And yes, now that I am not keeping a sealed collection any more, these have been opened.

Older Hot Wheels - 2005 and 2006 Models

One of my good buddies on the New Zealand Hot Wheels group (via Facebook) had the opportunity to purchase a complete 2005 and 2006 collection, and over the last few months has been sorting out the spares from the collection - merging what he already had with the new arrivals.

Back in October 2014, I received the first parcel containing many 2006 models and today the second parcel arrived containing 2005 and 2006 cars (plus some 2015 E case items that he had managed to find for me in the hour between posting my wish list and checking out the local store).

My goal when going back in time to get cars from before I started collecting was to keep it simple, not to go crazy getting to many and try to stick to real cars as much as possible. In some ways I have failed, as I ended up getting many more cars than I expected to ever have but its nice to have some older castings in the collection that are no longer available in the mainline assortment.

Enjoy the images of what I received

A True RAOK from someone in New Zealand

Coming home from a hard day at the office to find a parcel is a great way to end the day. Thinking I knew what it was, I opened the New Zealand Post baggie to find a box and upon opening the box and looking at the contents I knew that this was not the parcel I was expecting to find.

Going back to the baggie, I checked it over for any kind of clue as to who sent the parcel but came up empty handed as the sender address label was blank and no additional tracking had been purchased to provide some clue as to the post office the parcel was sent from.

So whoever you are who sent this parcel, thank you very much.
Fingers crossed that someone from the YouTube community speaks up and lets me know if they sent the parcel (and maybe more importantly, how they got my address).

Matchbox from 2002 - 50th Anniversary

Various Hot Wheels

Mystery Models

Opened Mystery Models

Even older Matchbox - 2000 releases

Hot Wheels 2015 D and E Case Selection

Over the past week and a bit, reports have come in around New Zealand, that D and then E case cars were being found. In this hobby, I have had to accept that my location in New Zealand (at the South of the South Island) means that North Island sightings do not mean that any stores in my local area will actually be stocking the same things.

The week started with a call from the local Toyworld that they had received a new case of mainline Hot Wheels in, and excitement turned to disappointment when I finally got down there to see 2015 C case cars on the pegs. As the week dragged on, reports from the North Island indicated that "The Warehouse" had once again started filling dump bins with 2014 Hot Wheels cars, specifically more of the D, E and F case cars that had been parallel imported and known as cut cards because, well, the top right hand corner of the card has been cut.

Before heading into work today (Friday) I headed to the large branch of "The Warehouse" to see if anything new had been put out and too my horror saw that the dump bin was FULL of these parallel imported cut cards, as was the overstock. Disappointed that no D or E case cars were to be found, I went to work and posted a wish list on the Facebook group I belong to looking for some assistance with the 2015 D and E case cars I needed.

Heading out at lunch, I again headed to Kmart (no relation to Kmart USA) to see if they had restocked and "joy". In the aisle was a worker, holding a 2015 E case and filling the pegs one car at a time. As I got closer and confirmed the E case, I took a look at the pegs, quickly grabbed one car and then stood back to let the worker complete her task. 10 minutes later I headed to the checkout, paid and went back to work. Along the way I let a few people know what I found and then at work cancelled my earlier wish list post on Facebook since I had found the majority of the wish list. "YAY!"

My Finds

Eagle eyed spotters will notice a car with a small "TH" on the rear fender, this was the car I first saw when I was closer to the pegs and the first car I grabbed. Very happy to find this Super Treasure Hunt as it was one I was really wanting to find and have over the last few months passed up opportunities to purchase one at a premium price. 

The Ferrari 599XX is a stealer casting and with the end of the Mattel/Hot Wheels partnership, will surely be hoarded by many and is part of the reason I got two. Part of me wishes I had the skills to customise the rear of the car to add in the missed rear details so I could add an opener to the collection.

In real live, my car is a 1996 Honda Civic and I just can't pass up the opportunity to purchase a "1/64" scale model of a Honda Civic (even if this casting is of an earlier generation). The 2014 new models came in two great colours but I think this one can't be beaten with the perfect combination of black paint and red racing tampographs. 

The regular Treasure Hunt is ... well, odd. Nice to get another real car as a Treasure Hunt, but is not one that really appeals to me. Some folks may ask why I got two then if I don't really like it and its because both of these are heading to others - one to the Facebook group and one in a Treasure Hunt parcel to a fellow YouTube Collector.

Cheap RLC Cars

As mentioned in the post about the Blown Delivery, the HWC website had a pre Christmas sale offering 50% off Series 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 items left in the store (and free USA postage if the order was over $25). My wish list was large, but being the most expensive time of the year I took my time ordering and unfortunately, two of my most wanted cars sold out almost instantly.

Eventually I made an order for 7 cars, and they arrived this week from the USA forwarding address. Nothing special or spectacular in the mix, but just cars to fill in gaps in what I want from the RLC cars.

Sadly, even at half price I just cannot bring myself to purchase doubles and open these cars and start a loose RLC car collection. Fingers crossed one day I'll be able to find a large lot of already loose cars on the open market and indulge.

Lego Mini Figures - Series 13

Ah Lego, you know us collectors so well and here we are at the start of 2015 and yet another release of Lego Mini Figures have just hit New Zealand Retail.

For each mix, I look at the characters and tell myself "just one or two", which of course turns into quite a few more. For a few mixes, I was able to resist the urge to purchase these (around the same time that being able to identify the figures either using the barcodes or bump codes disappeared from the packets), but with my new found contacts at the local Toyworld who are experts at feeling the packets and actually labelling for customers, the resolve to leave them alone has disappeared and I find myself eagerly awaiting the new mix.

So far, 9 packets have been purchased and only one double has been found.
Enjoy

Superion!

Can we get another OH YEAH!

After what feels like months of waiting, and checking the tracking status every day, my small Amazon order containing the first wave of Transformers Generations Combiner Wars Deluxes has finally arrived and now I can form SUPERION!

Well, sorta

For reasons only known to Hasbro, they decided a) not to include Slingshot as a member of the team (replacing him with a new character Alpha Bravo) and b) not to sell all the Aerialbots in the first wave, pushing Air Raid to the second wave and leaving collectors with a Decepticon to form the arm or leg.

A few hours later - after carefully removing bubbles to preserve that lovely card artwork and extracting the figures from the packaging and then taking the time to admire the individual robot and alt modes - Superion was finally in hand and OH YEAH!
Words cannot describe how awesome it is to have this combiner in the collection.

Now, the never ending battle of trying to reorganise the display collection to somehow fit this guy in!

2013 Comes to an End

With the release of the Neo Classics Blown Delivery, Series 12 of the Red Line Club from 2013 finally comes to an end. We got there, but boy was it a struggle!

With at least 6 new backorder dates appearing throughout 2014, the car was finally released a couple of days after Christmas. Once the car got here, everything was as it should have been and you can tell that Mattel had been listening to our concerns about quality as the bubble around the car was back to being a form fitting bubble, unlike the earlier 2013 Real Riders Blown Delivery.

The weekend before Christmas, HWC announced another sale of left over items from the store, and with that sale another returning item that had been previously sold out. Unlike the last sale for Cyber Monday, this item wasn't going to be on sale or qualify for free postage but would come with a free car.

The item in question was the 2012 Holiday Car - another Blown Delivery, while the free car would be the 2014 J Case Super Treasure Hunt, the 64 Nova Station Wagon. HWC Gary did warn us that there would be limited numbers available, and at 4.55am on Saturday 20th December 2014 I was up, ready with the page ready to do a mad refresh as we got closer to 5am (8am Pacific Time, 19th December 2014 - time zones).

At 5am, I was able to add the Blown Delivery to my cart and flew through checkout and then went to check out if the item had sold out. I was actually able to almost get through checkout again but stopped myself due to financial limitations and not being able to remember if it was a one per order limit or a one per order and account limit.

In hand the Holiday Blown Delivery is excellent, as the majority of Red Line Club cars are and it is very good to have at least one Holiday car after the disaster that was the 2013 Holiday Car.

Just a couple of Auto Worlds

After managing to score some very cheap M2 Machines from the store in Japan I order most of my Japanese Transformers from, I took a deeper look at their product offerings and found that they also stock Auto World products.

While in San Francisco (October 2013), I was able to pick up some Auto World releases at Toys R Us stores (and one Walmart), but after getting home and seeing how hard it could be to obtain what I wanted, my interest drifted. When series 2 started arriving at online stores, I was interested in a few more cars but could never pull the trigger on a full set and singles were providing hard and expensive to obtain.

Thankfully, this online store in Japan had one of the cars I wanted from Series 2 as a single - the 58 Plymouth Fury, from the movie "Christine". In hand, this is a stunning release - online images with the car in package with two layers of plastic in the way do not do this car justice. In the coming months, Mattel will be doing the same car in their Retro Entertainment line and it will be good to compare the two side by side and see how Auto World's claim of true 1:64 scale is.

The second car I purchased was due to the way the online store had listed it, the chase versions of Auto World cars are called Ultra Reds which are a deep gloss red car with white stripes. There were two listings for the Series 2 67 Ford Mustang GT, red with white stripes and gloss red with white stripes with the image on each listing clearly showing the differences between the cars. Naturally I ordered the gloss red version, but knew it was a long shot that I was actually going to get an Ultra Red in the mail. It was no surprise when I opened the parcel and found the standard red with white stripe version :-)

Hot Wheels Purchases from TradeMe

TradeMe is New Zealand's answer to eBay, the online market place for New Zealanders (Kiwi's) to get rid of their old crap in exchange for money. January is a good time of the year to be able to score some bargains, as people realise they have over spent at Christmas and credit card bills need to be paid.

I was able to score a few nice items from the same seller (but also missed out on a few other items I wanted due to competition) and they arrived in the postal system over the weekend.

First, Hot Wheels 100% 56 Merc

A nice looking car that I was interested in as soon as I saw the listing due to it's vintage racing look.

Nice item, another Hot Wheels 100% "0032" Roadster

There is something about 30's cars that tugs at the "heart strings" and I was glad to be able to accept the sellers fixed price offer to get it even cheaper than originally listed.

Finally, from the Hot Wheels Hall of Fame Series Ford Mustang Cobra Jet

Another vintage racing car that I just had to have and I managed to get it for a steal compared to some of the eBay prices I have seen.

All of these items will be opened up and added to the loose collection (with the display cases from the 100% cars finding a new home with "my good friend from the capital city"). 

Transformers MP-22 Ultra Magnus

Oh Yeah!

I received my second MP-22 over the weekend, after receiving my first for my sealed Masterpiece collection late in December 2014.

Having already watched a few online reviews of this guy, I was pumped to open him... so I did

This Transformer does not disappoint at all.
I can't believe how close to the G1 cartoon he looks, and while the transformation is pretty simple, there are a few neat twists.

Since this was the first Masterpiece I have actually opened since MP-3 back in 2006, I have a fair bit of catchup with MP-10, MP-12, MP-14, MP-17, MP-18, MP-19, MP-20 and MP-21 all sitting in their boxes waiting for me to find room in my limited display space.
Sorry MP Decepticons, you just have to wait!

To be updated .. sometime soon

New Zealand Hot Wheels Purchase

Managed to get a couple of items from a fellow New Zealand collector, he was getting rid of his Super collection and while I was slow to the party and missed out on most, I was able to get one item I didn't have and one I already had (to be added to the trade pile).

The seller was also kind enough to include the regular versions of the cars as extras
I'll let you guess what car is in the trade pile (or you can watch the YouTube video)...

The star of the parcel however, and what I want to talk about was the 2013 RLC Exclusive VW Drag Bus. Now, some collectors go crazy for the Drag Bus but I am not one of them. Sure it is a nice casting and is good for customs if you are into those as well (again I am not), but the call to me on this was the Hot Wheels Racing Team colour scheme - the Hot Wheels logo with the blue and white colour scheme calls out to me and makes me want to get every car that is in this style. Mattel seems to know this as they tend to make a few cars in this colour scheme :-)

In 2013 I had just joined the Red Line Club - as a New Zealander I am allowed to, but have to ship the items to a parcel forwarding service in the USA in order to actually receive the cars. When this VW Drag Bus went on sale, I got up at the required time (5am on the day after the sale - time zones!) and tried to purchase. Sadly the website was playing up, nothing could be added to the cart. I refreshed and refreshed, read the forums and then had to give up and get ready to go to work. Whatever the problem was, was resolved in that time of getting ready and going to work so by the time I checked the website again, the Drag Bus had of course sold out.

Prices on eBay were of course naturally inflated and so I added it to my wish list for the future. That future arrived last week when it was offered on the Facebook group for sale and I jumped. Pricing was exactly the same as if I had of got it directly from Mattel (factoring in postage to USA address and then onwards to New Zealand) so I think I did pretty well.

In the die cast car hobby, it sometimes pays to just wait for that item you want to come along at the right price rather than hunting for something.

Batman Automobilia

1/64 is my preferred scale of collecting (although Hot Wheels and Matchbox are more in the 3 inch scale than true 1/64 scale), however when I first saw the Batman Automobilia collection with its 1/43 scale Batmobile vehicles, I knew I would be in trouble.

Most of the cars were not of any interest, with my focus on the Movie and Cartoon Batmobiles.
Issues 1, 2 and 3 were sold in my local area, but I had to get help with obtaining issue 7, 8 and 14. Issue 4 was a surprise local find many months after it should have been released.

Next on the wanted list is issue 34 (Batman: Arkham Asylum Video Game) but I am not sure how to obtain - shipping from any place outside of New Zealand is cost prohibitive.

Enjoy the quick videos of Issues 4, 7, 8 and 14 below

Transformers Arrivals from the USA

For those who only know me via my YouTube channel, you will probably notice that I sometimes slip in the odd Transformers video. This is because Transformers are still my number one passion when it comes to collecting "things", but the frequency of arrivals, along with my desire to keep them sealed in package do not make for very exciting videos!

Since Transformers Generations has not been on the toy shelves in New Zealand since early 2013, importing is the way to go, and the final wave of 2014 brings us Fembots we have been waiting to see since 1985 finally in plastic form. Chromia is a retool of Transformers Prime Arcee while Arcee is a new figure done to match her on screen appearance in Transformers The Movie (1986).

New for 2015 is a series called Combiner Wars, robots that combine together to form a larger robot. As a collector I tend to take a "wait and see approach" as Takara Tomy over in Japan often releases the same toys with slightly improved decoration and/or additional paint applications. Seeing more and more images and video reviews, I knew I had to pick up the Hasbro versions while importing items for others, and if Takara Tomy do release the same toys I know that I will end up "double dipping" and purchasing those versions as well.

First up, Legends Powerglide and Bombshell. Both new toys, and they both look excellent.
Powerglide can also be used as a gun for the Combiner Superion. Bombshell gives us a much needed Decepticon, and with the release of 2 of the 3 Insecticons at this size, fans now really want Kickback to be released.

Voyager Superion is the centre robot in the Combiner Superion and again looks excellent, and compared to the 2008 Ultra release is "the" Silverbolt to pickup and add to the collection. No Transformers line can be complete without Optimus Prime and the first wave brings us a new version. Wave 2 will see Motormaster, and Optimus Prime is a retool of Motormaster and since the line is all about combining the figure also combines with the deluxe "limb" toys. Currently very undecided if this Optimus will be added to the collection - he looks good, but the 2006 Classics Optimus Prime still looks better.

Super Trade with Local Collector

After work on Monday (5th January) I meet up with a fellow Hot Wheels collector who lives in the same town. He had a car for me that he had to give me and we also had new findings to show each other.

In early 2014, I did a trade with this collector - 3 Super Treasure Hunts for "credit" on future finds. His job enables him to travel further than I can, and this allows him to sometimes find more Super Treasure Hunts than I can.

Having 2 credits up my sleeve came in handy, when I received a text message letting me know he had found a Super Treasure Hunt Kool Kombi and as he already had one, this one was mine. At the time, 2 down for 2015 and 2015 had not even started.

At the meeting, I showed him my recently acquired 2013 Super Treasure Hunt set, along with the 55 Chevy Bel Air Gasser and the 71 Datsun 510 Wagon. In turn, he showed me a 64 Chevy Nova Station Wagon and a re-carded 83 Chevy Silverado that he had found in a 20 pack and had managed to convince the store to replace it with a mainline version he purchased off the peg! I was also able to use my last credit, and acquired a spare Toyota AE-86 Corolla Super Treasure Hunt for future trading purposes.

All in all, a very good catch-up

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, my goal with this is to expand on anything I mention in my YouTube videos so that my Youtube videos do not become long and extra boring.

Spread the word.