Matchbox Premiere (and other die cast)

After looking around online for a few weeks, I decided to make the plunge one night and purchased a few Matchbox Premiere items from the same seller. The particular seller who happened to have a Hot Wheels Retro Entertainment item I was interested in, and because they were very cheap I also added in a few Matchbox Superfast items from 2004.

As mentioned in other blog posts, my focus for going after older Matchbox items was to get older castings that are no longer in production, along with focusing on non American castings. I've already broken that rule in purchases that arrived earlier, but rules are meant to be broken. One of these American castings (the 57 Chevy) reminds me of a standard Matchbox car I had when I was a child of the late 80's or early 90's which is why I was excited to be able to get a premiere version of the casting.

Arriving in the same parcel from my USA shipping address were two items from an eBay seller - I spent about a week trying to decide if I purchase one car (as it was the only decently priced one around) or add more items from the seller I was half interested in. It turns out my decision was made for me when the eBay shopping cart advised me that the seller did not combine postage and there was no way I was paying over $20US in postage on a couple of items - so I made do with two.

The Mercedes has the distinction of not only being non American, and a race car but also one of only times this casting as been released. The Muscle Machine made it to the collection as I have started a very small collection of these very nicely detailed tuners and I continue to add more as funds and availability allow.

Trademe Arrivals

Through more saved searches on Trademe, I decided to add even more items to the collection - random bits and pieces from different sellers.

One of the sellers I had used before listed some loose Matchbox Premiere items and so I decided to snatch them up. While looking through the rest of the items the seller had listed, I decided to add a set of Johnny Lighting Aston Martin's to the order because they were Aston's and looked good (not to mention that I associated Johnny Lightning with only American cars so it was a surprise to see this). The set of Aston's included the regular release, along with the chase piece - called a White Lightning - which is identified by the white base and interior.

Another seller has a single Matchbox Superfast item that caught my eye.

Local Purchases

I have a few saved searches setup on Trademe (New Zealand's auction website similar to eBay) and one morning found a local seller had a Speed Machine I needed up for auction. I promptly setup a bid and then looked up his other listings and made a short list of what I wanted. 6 days later, I managed to win the Speed Machine along with several other auctions and organised to meetup with the seller to purchase.

While I was at the sellers house, I asked if he had any more Speed Machines and after a quick search, three more were added to my pile. Eventually (after a long conversation) I paid for the purchases and left.

So good to be able to add more Speed Machines to the collection considering the cost that these can reach on overseas auction sites. All aside from the Ferrari 333SP will stay in the sealed collection while I will probably open the 333SP and display with the rest of the open Speed Machines.

The rest of the purchases were mainly there to justify the purchase of the Speed Machine once it was confirmed won. Originally had many other mainline Ferraris from the seller on the wish list, but decided that I didn't need to add them - none of them sold, so they may still end up coming home with me one day...

Matchbox Premiere Gift Set

After purchasing the Matchbox Premiere cars from the USA, I turned my attention to New Zealand and checked out Trademe to see if anyone had any listings. One seller had a Corvette giftset listed, so I placed it on the watchlist and when the time came to bid, I did so. Sadly the seller had a reserve which I did not meet and a few days later I received an email advising of relisting which included a reasonable instant purchase price and so purchased.

When purchasing cars for the Matchbox Premiere collection, I decided mostly to ignore American cars as I had plenty of them from Greenlight and M2 in the collection - being a Corvette gift set, I was breaking the rule very fast .. but these things happen and rules are supposed to be broken right :-)

Sadly the packaging was damaged on arrival (and not from postage), but it will make the opening of this set a lot easier. What I love about the set is that they included some really nice real car bio's of the cars included  - check out and pause the YouTube video to read those if interested.

Matchbox Premiere

Looking around eBay and other online stores for something to purchase, I came across a listing for a car in a series called Matchbox Premiere from the late 90's which made me search for more information. I eventually found a website that showed most of the cars from this time and was hooked. Older cars and castings (most long out of production) with simple colour schemes, detailed front/rear and interior tampographs and Goodyear branded rubber tires.

Diving into what had been produced over the few years that the line ran for, I decided I would focus on getting castings that different to castings I already had (which ruled out most American cars) and began a search. Eventually I found a few sellers that had items I was after and spent some money.

One of those sellers was based in Oregon so the parcel to my shipping address in Oregon took no time to arrive and so was shipped to New Zealand ahead of the few other parcels.

With these arrivals, I very quickly broke my "rule" about not getting to many cars I already had as the racing themed Corvette and the CHIPS themed Camaro called out to me. The RX-7 and the Audi were must haves and am now glad to have them.

Also arriving from the same seller was a single Johnny Lightning car. I have mostly avoided Johnny Lightning since starting collecting as they focus on American cars and that quote is happily filled by Greenlight in my collection. However, I had actually seen this car at a local second hand shop and was interested but did not want to pay the asking price from the store.

All of these cars will be cracked open so look for a YouTube cracking video shortly!

Hot Wheels N, P and Q case

As mentioned before, New Zealand distribution of Hot Wheels has been shit for 2015 - smaller stores like Kmart and Toyworld have been my go to source for new cases but at only one case per shipment there is not much chance to get a super and the largest retailer is stick in a time wrap with parallel and regular G case cars on the pegs. So when an offer came from Australia to trade for a Greenlight Green Machine I asked what they had at retail over there ...

With long card Q case being the answer, I sent back a wish list and within a few days I had the majority of the wish list secured and once a trade was worked out, parcels were sent. A few days later, one very well wrapped parcel arrived and behold ...

With the exception of a few doubles (and of course Super Treasure Hunts), my wish list for 2015 was secured and I can now focus on how to proceed with collecting 2016 Hot Wheels - when they arrive in New Zealand in 2017 or 2018.

Oh, there was also one extra car in the parcel ...

Yep, one Q case Super Treasure Hunt was also sent across in the parcel and from what I understand was one of a few that the trader managed to find while going through boxes of new cars looking for items from the wish list. 9 down and 6 more to go for the year.

Matchbox Purchases

Having a look around Trademe one night after work, I found a seller who happened to have quite a few desirable castings from 2007-2011, at very reasonable prices (either cheaper than current retail or current retail). Double checking my lists, I decided to purchase a few items and they arrived today.

Not to much to say about these, all simple plain real cars that have full front and rear tampo decorations (aside from two who only have front). As the Lamley blog pointed out, this was the golden age of Matchbox and I am annoyed that when I started collecting I didn't pick up as many from the pegs when I could have.