Retro Entertainment 2015

To quote T-Hunted - BOMBA!
Or maybe not :

Walking into the supermarket after work to get some items required for dinner, I walked past the small toy section and stopped dead. Hanging on the pegs were the first series of the 2015 Retro Entertainment, a series that - to the best of my knowledge - has not yet appeared in the USA stores.

Pulling out the camera for some quick in store shots, I selected the best cards and proceeded to the checkout, promptly forgetting to get the food I went into the supermarket to get.

Excuse the in store pictures, better images uploaded when light is available

Unlike every other wave, this wave only has 4 cars - for whatever reason the planned Porsche Speedster never made it to the assortment. However, this mix is still very fantastic and it will be a shame when the Retro Entertainment (or just Entertainment) series comes to an end.

Hopefully in the next few weeks, more local stores get these in (or my USA case order is filled) so I can get some extras to open.

Greenlight Hitch and Tow Series 3

With the lack of anything new locally, I decided to place another order at a USA store in order to secure the Greenlight Hitch and Tow Series 3, along with a few older Greenlight items I was after.

After a few days refining the order to make sure I wasn't spending too much, I placed the order and waited for the parcel to be shipped to my USA shipping address and then finally onto New Zealand.

Having skipped series 2 of the Hitch and Tow series, Series 3 called out to me with the Police Cruiser and the Dodge RAM with the attractive graphics decorating the side of the truck and trailer. It also didn't hurt that the Dodge D-100 and Chevrolet G20 van hit a 'sweet spot' in the collection.

Joining the journey were a few older items that I wanted, again with the Dodge and Chevrolet van hitting a 'sweet spot' but taking me dangerously close to going over my maximum number of the same vehicle.

There were still other older as well as new releases that interested me, but they have to wait for the next order and sadly with the exchange rate taking a dive at the moment, it is not the time to be importing items from the USA.

Hot Wheels 68 Copo Camaro

Finally, something Hot Wheels related has arrived thanks to the Hot Wheels Collectors online store. With no new Hot Wheels locally to be excited about and not enough decently priced older releases available on the local market, the dry spell has forced me to go looking at other brands as well as other "collectibles".

Released as another Special Edition (read, costs more), the 68 Copo Camaro is released in the fantastic original Hot Wheels Race Team decoration.

Just a shame that this was the only item in the box and with no more planned HWC releases in the next few months, the local stores need to get their act together and deliver new mainline cars, as well as Retro Entertainment and Heritage.

Marvel Universe

A few weeks back, I re-visited collecting 3 and 3/4 inch action figures with the purchase of some Marvel Infinate series. While visiting the online store I got two of the figures from, I noticed that they had some left over Marvel Universe figures available (imported from the USA). Sadly the price of the figures was too expensive for my budget and more than I really wanted to spend on action figures.

A few days later, I received a slew of emails from the store advertising of a price drop on the Marvel Universe figures and so I quickly jumped online and ordered what I could (having missed out on one figure). A few days after ordering, I had a parcel on my desk at work.

Compared to the Infinite Series figures, these are the 3 and 3/4 inch action figures I fell in love with, good paint detail and super articulation. Time to crack them open and figure out how they join in with the rest of the open figures I have for a diorama setup.

More Transformers Combiner Wars

Each Transformer Combiner released so far in Combiner Wars has had one common feature - a completely new character/toy that takes the place of an existing character.
Superion - Alpha Bravo replaces Slingshot
Menasor - Off Road replaces Wild Rider
Defensor - Rook replaces Groove (though Groove does survive as a "chest plate")

Naturally, the "fan-boys" (and girls) raged that these new characters shouldn't be there, and that these Combiner Wars toys should be faithful to the original G1 characters. This rage got even louder when Takara released the first promotional image of their Superion showing that it had 4 planes as the arms and legs, rather than 3 planes and a helicopter. When actual photos of Takara Superion were released, it clearly showed that Slingshot was back (as a retool of Fireflight) and that Alpha Bravo was no more.

Adding more flames to the fire, when Takara released images of Menasor, it was once again clear that Off-Road was no more and Wild Rider was back (as a retool of Dead End). It was clear that as far as Takara went, the Combiner Wars series was going to be a massive nod to G1 and that only the G1 characters would be part of the team.

Either planned, or in order to appease the fans, Hasbro announced via Facebook that they too would also release the missing team members for Superion and Menasor as online exclusives late in May 2015.

Ordering a set from Asia, these arrived a few weeks ago well before the "street date" that the large American base online stores have to stick to.

At the moment these two figures have been left in their packages, as the Hasbro combiners look fantastic as they are with the new members. As a child of the 80s, it is great to have these new Combiners but I am happy with the changes made on the Hasbro side to introduce these new characters to the team.

As I do also plan to get the Takara versions of the characters, my plan at the moment is to have the Takara ones combined and the Hasbro as single characters on the shelf - sadly I do need a bigger shelf for that plan to actually succeed.

Marvel and Star Wars Hot Wheels

Joining the large lineup of "other" Hot Wheels items arriving in stores in time for the school holidays where the Marvel Character cars. Taking advantage of the percentage off sales in early April, I decided that a couple would come home with me.

Just like the few Star Wars cars, these two appealed to me and will join the rest of my open cars. Sure they don't have the required front headlights and rear taillights, but for these I have made an exception to the rule.

Speaking of Star Wars, I also picked up another car - original plan was to get this a few days after the Marvel cars but then life happened and I delayed all purchases. It worked out however as I was able to get the car for even cheaper.

Fingers crossed that more of these arrive in New Zealand over the next few months and this isn't just a one off.

Matchbox Lesney Edition

I started collecting die cast back in mid 2011, and hanging around on the pegs back then were Matchbox Lesney Editions. Priced at either $7.99 or $9.99 (depending on the retailer) I thought they were a tad too expensive at the time since I still had Transformers as my expensive hobby and die cast were to be the cheap hobby (I was also unemployed at the time, which didn't help).

Fast forward a few years and now I crave the more premium options from the various die cast makers, and think "nothing" of spending $10-15NZ on a premium die cast car (at 1/64 scale). How times change!

While having a look around Trademe (New Zealands version of eBay), I found a seller who had several Matchbox Lesney Editions for sale. Comparing my list of what I had, verses what the seller had, I decided to go with a small order of 5 cars. The seller got back to me very quickly with a postage quote and so I paid and waited. The next day I received a message from the seller apologising - he could not find a couple of my cars, but had attached images of what he had and asked me to pick replacements but if nothing suited he would give me a refund.

As I needed/wanted a heap of cars, I made a primary list and a secondary list and gave both to the seller who said he would hold the secondary list for me for a few weeks (waiting on my own payday). Being impatient, I paid for the secondary list a few days later and waited for both parcels to arrive (which happened while I was away for work).

Opening both parcels, I wasn't disappointed with my selections and added a couple of cars to my wish list to also open.

Now to find the others that I am missing (along with a checklist - if anyone knows, please get in touch)