RAOK

Coming home from work to see a parcel at the front door is an exciting time, and when the parcel is unknown to you it is even more exciting. Arriving home from work, I found a parcel sent from a fellow New Zealand collector who I know via YouTube and who I have sold items to. In the parcel was a note letting me know that he was sending me back an item I had included two off in the last parcel I had sent his way, along with a few snacks to help me through my next YouTube video.

First up the snacks - we have some potato chips and M&M candy, and then items that will allow me to grow my own snacks in the future including vegetable seeds, water saver and fertilizer!

Next, the toys including the returned item along with one item I mentioned in a video about not being able to find locally.

Truly was an awesome parcel to come home to and find, pulling out all the various parts of the parcel made me laugh.

Thank you very much Glenn!

Transformers Combiner Wars Wave 3

Back in April, I was able to preorder the 3rd Wave of Hasbro's Transformers Combiner Wars, the focus of this wave being the combiner Defensor. Unlike the first two waves, Defensor (made up of the Voyager Hot Spot, the Deluxes First Aid, Blades, Street Wise and Rook and Legends Groove) were all available at the same time and made the decision to import everything that much easier, as local stores have not yet received anything past Wave 1.

From my childhood days, I had one member of the Protectobots - First Aid and was looking forward to the upgrade. While the Generation One version of the character was made up of 5 transformers, this new Combiner Wars is actually made up of 6 toys with Groove (the motorcycle) being moved from being an arm or a leg to being the chest plate/shield.

Included in the order, were the other figures from Wave 3 - part of Hasbro's requirement to reuse existing toys in an effort to spread out the cost of creating new toys. Aside from Viper, these extra toys were not added to the collection.

As a awesome bonus, Hasbro Hong Kong produced a sticker sheet for the first two Combiner characters (Superion and Menasor) which is a fantastic throwback to the sticker sheets included with the original G1 Transformers.

Super RAOK

Work sent me up to Wellington (the capital of New Zealand) for a few days and I took the opportunity to catch up with a couple of Hot Wheels collectors up there, including another visit to see "my good mate from the capital city" and his collection at home.

On leaving, he handed me a small box with instructions not to open it until I had checked into my hotel for the evening, I promptly forgot about the box until the next day as I was heading to the airport for my next flight and needed to find some room in my baggage for the box.

Opening it up, I was amazed at the contents..

Two Hot Wheels Super Treasure Hunts!!

Needless to say I was on the phone within seconds thanking "my good mate" for the parcel.
6 for the year now ticked off the list, 7 more to go.

Marvel Infinite Series

Returning to work after my bereavement leave allowed me to take a look in some stores I hadn't set foot into in a few weeks. One of those visited yielded a surprise find, in the form of Marvel Infinite Series. For those who are unaware, this is the continuation of the Marvel Universe series that ended in 2013 and was a series that had left New Zealand retail in late 2010.

I had been a keen collector of Marvel Universe (along with Star Wars and GI Joe) 3 & 3/4 inch figures up until my unemployment made getting the sets or cases unaffordable, so it was a real treat to see these back on the New Zealand store shelves again. The sighting also happened to coincide with a 25% off toy sale at the store and so I picked up the two figures I wanted that were packed one to a case with the aim of getting some of the 2 per case figures later on when I had actually worked out what characters I hadn't already picked up back in the Marvel Universe days.

A few days later, I decided to check out the local auction website (Trademe) along with a few online New Zealand stores to see if there were any other Marvel Infinite around and via one online store found a few from the first series that were on special. 

One order and a couple of days later I had a parcel at the door.

While not as "super articulated" as the Marvel Unverse of old, they are still fantastic figures and vast improvements of the 5 point of articulation figures that seem to clog store shelves. 

Fingers crossed that future waves of Marvel Infinite Series land here in New Zealand and this isn't just a one of shipment that is doomed to fail due to over ordering.

M2 Auto Mods

Back in October (or November) 2014, I pre-ordered a hobby exclusive set of M2 cars that had an expected release date of December 2014. In April 2015, they were finally released and arrived in hand a few weeks later.

There was just something that caught my eye when I saw the pre order, it might have been the casting, it might have been the colour, it might have been the tampo's on the car and it was probably a combination of everything. Whatever it was, I am glad to have these in hand now and look forward to the day when I can open all the M2's I have and display them in their display cases.

HWC Special Editions

While I was "offline", two parcels from the Hot Wheels Collectors Club arrived which added two new cars to the HWC/RLC collection,

The first car doesn't really need any introduction - the Datsun 240Z in the BRE colour scheme.
Around the Hot Wheels collecting community, anything Japanese seems to be HOT at the moment and this Datsun 240Z is no exception. After the release of the 510 in late 2013, this 240Z is an awesome companion piece.

The second arrival was another Special Edition, the 2014 Corvette Stingray.
Priced at $20US ($5 more than the Datsun, $10 more than Series 13 cars), the item looks spectacular in hand however doesn't seem to be any more special than any other RLC car so the price increase was somewhat confusing.

Here is hoping some more cars are announced as being on sale soon!

Greenlight Green Machines

Hitching a ride with my March Transformers order, was a single Greenlight die cast car.
Because the Japanese website I use offers it, I subscribe to an RSS feed over several categories, and one night I checked and saw there was one single new Greenlight listing, that specifically mentioned green wheels.

I checked it out, saw it was still available and went through the checkout process. The next day after confirming my order I paid and waited.

As you can see by the image, I did get my green wheeled item - a Series 1, Greenlight Hitch and Tow 1967 Chevrolet Impala and Airstream Bambi.

Item will be added to the trade pile as I do not actively collect Green Machines (unless they are fully green cars) and already have a potential trade in the works.