Local Greenlight

Several days after my last imported Greenlight arrival, I paid a random check to the New Zealand distributors website and was surprised to see that the number of Greenlight listings had increased significantly and all of the new listings said they were new rather than pre order - meaning they were already in stock at the distributors.

As I walked into Toyworld, the manager announced the Greenlight news to me and gave me a order form in order to mark what I required (if anything) so that she could add my requirements to the store order. At work I sorted the list of arrivals against cars I already had in and order to make sure I wasn't ordering the same car over and over again (trying to keep to a limit of 5 of the same casting can be hard) and the next day I handed in my wish list.

A week later the store had its new stock and I was the owner of 8 new Greenlights - sadly no Green Machines in this batch to pick up as future trade pieces, but their may always be a next time.

Of note is that all of the new arrivals were rather old compared to what was out in the USA (and already in my collection) so fingers crossed there is another shipment coming soon .. and the number of missing items is reduced.

Hot Wheels 2016 F Case

Several days after finding E case cars at my local Toyworld, reports of E and F cases showing at at The Warehouse stores across parts of the country started to flow in. Several checks of local stores however advised that nothing had come in since the D cases and that nothing was on order.

Fortunately, (a few weeks later) a text message from a worker at the smallest Warehouse store just down the road from my house arrived over the weekend advising that he had found a new Aston Martin from the James Bond film Spectre and from that I was able to surmise that F cases at finally landed locally.

With only one case to choose from, I knew that getting a Super Treasure Hunt was almost next to impossible, but I was able to complete my small wish list with both single cars and doubles that I "required".

Roll on the G case!

Matchbox 2016 A Case

With news that Mattel had reduced sealed case sizes on Matchbox 2016 assortments from 36 cars to 24 cars, and case unboxing reports showing a lack of repeated models between the case codes, I got worried that finding the models I was after was either going to leave me with many unwanted models due to the requirement of getting a sealed case, or make my average purchase price really high due to "popular model surge pricing". Thankfully my fears for at least the A case were put aside, after finding the cars locally.

Walking into my small local Warehouse store, I glanced at the very small Matchbox section and noticed one of the cars I was after from the 2016 case, quickly followed by another. Despite assistance from a store worker I know, I wasn't able to find any further 2016 models I was after.

After multiple attempts at trying to locate more 2016 at the larger stores, I was unsuccessful for a few weeks until I stumbled across a single 2016 model in the Hot Wheels dump bin. I then began another search of the store and managed to spy up on the overstock shelves enough of a case box to know I hadn't missed out. After getting some assistance from store workers to get down a couple of cases and was able to walk away with the A case items from my wishlist.

With Matchbox B and C cases already out in the USA, fingers crossed that local stores order in these cases quickly - and then actually put them on the shop floor to sell to customers rather than hiding them away on overstock (especially when the pegs are near empty!!)

RLC Rewards - the conclusion

Back in December I received my RLC Rewards order and found that they had given me another car rather than one I had ordered. After getting in touch and advising them of the error, they automatically put an order into the system for another incorrect car which I reluctantly paid the postage bill to get to New Zealand. After raising the issue again, I received a phone call from Mattel apologizing for the issue and they agreed to send the correct rewards order car

... and finally, it arrived
YAY! :-)

Not much to say about it now that it is in hand, a Series 7 Neo Classics Gremlin Grinder which is one I had overlooked for a while but thought I better get while the shop was still offering Series 7 for sale.
Glad the saga is over.

Lego Ferrari F40

As I have mentioned in other blog posts, I tend not to create a blog post or YouTube video for single Lego purchases, however this Lego set does deserve to be shown even if the New Zealand release is around 4-5 months behind the rest of the world!

Per the title, I was able to pickup the Creator Ferrari F40 set - this was a set I knew I was going to purchase as soon as saw the first images online. Eventually I was able to get confirmation that Toyworld would be bringing it in (saving me the headache of importing from the official online Lego store), though it wouldn't be until early 2016.

I do plan to build this as quickly as possible, though once built I will have a hard time finding somewhere to display ...

7 days pass

And completed!
Compared to some of the other builds I have done, this did have a higher difficulty curve but was still pretty painless to build except when I managed to skip part of the build and didn't see it until a few pages later. My only gripe with the build is that for some reason, the drivers side seat does not lock in nearly as well as the passengers side and even the slightest touch sees it moving around the cabin.

Greenlight and M2 Arrivals

With a couple of parcels en route to the USA shipping warehouse, I decided to make a small order of Greenlight from one of my regular suppliers in order to keep up with releases in case the New Zealand supplier decided to continue skipping items.

The main focus of the order was the Black Bandit Nissan GT-R (R35), a casting I had been looking forward to since it was announced as it was the first non-American casting that wasn't from the Motor World lineup and thus received a full metal/metal treatment.

Also new to the Greenlight lineup were the Monte Carlo, the Chevrolet Silverado and the Ford F-150, so a selection of new releases were added to the order.

Rounding out the Greenlight arrivals was a Corvette GT1 which was added to the order after another check of the Greenlight casting numbers showed that this casting was missing from the collection.

Hitching a ride were some more M2 Machines; two early release Auto Wheels and a Volkswagen Bus that looks fantastic in the Goodyear decoration.

As always, already looking forward to the next arrival although before anything is ordered I need to check in with the New Zealand supplier and see if they have more planned for release in New Zealand.