Matchbox Jeep Anniversary

As readers of the blog may know, visiting my local Toyworld store is one of my daily lunchtime activities in order to generally kill time, chat with the staff to pick their brains on upcoming toy releases and sometimes I even purchase something from the store. Walking in yesterday it was with great surprise that I saw the Matchbox Jeep Anniversary series being unpacked - Toyworld had not stocked Matchbox in three years and this set was only just shown off by Matchbox a few short weeks ago.

Fast forward 24 hours later and I was back in the store handing over some money for the complete set of eight, along with one duplicate as an opener.

Overall the set of eight is very sharp with only the concept Jeep Willys looking a bit "off", and hopefully more cases arrive in other collectors hands soon.
Hopefully arriving soon to compliment this set is the six car set of Land Rovers.

My Most Expensive Lego Set .. ever!

In 2015 Lego announced a Ultimate Collectors Edition (UCS) version of the "Tumbler" (the Batmobile from the 2005 Batman Begins film) and I knew that if it ever appeared at my local Toyworld I would want it - the trouble is, that I knew it would be expensive. Sure enough, in September 2015 my local Toyworld got in two sets and priced them at the Lego Recommended Retail Price of $350NZ.

And they sold out in a few hours!

I was advised that they had ordered more the Christmas shopping season and eventually eight more showed up. After Christmas, with one left on the shelf I decided it was now or never and put the set on layby (layaway in the USA) so I could pay the set off over the following weeks and justify the purchase of such an expensive set to myself.

2 months later, the payments were complete and I brought the set home.
Currently it is sitting in its sealed box in my car, waiting for an opportunity to not only build the set but to figure out where in the house it will be displayed as options are very limited!

Thanks to some sales, I was also able to purchase more Lego in the weeks following the arrival of the Tumbler into the collection and I started with the remaining 2015 Speed Champions sets I hadn't purchased in 2015. While I was a huge fan of the sets, the pricing of the sets was always problematic - if a single car was worth $25, then in each sets the "extra" parts were not worth an additional $45-50NZ.

Also some more 2016 City sets joined the collection.

And thanks to checking at just the right time, I was able to snag a few of the 2016 Speed Champion sets from the online store I normally source my Japanese Transformers from. For some unexplainable reason, the 2016 Speed Champions sets are not part of the Lego catalogue in New Zealand (and Australia) for the first part of the year, even though they are for most of the world. With shipping, the price worked out just a few dollars more than local prices and it was worth it to have secured the sets. Joining this Lego shipment from Japan was a 2015 Lego City set I had failed to purchase locally when it was available.

Hot Wheels 2016 G and H Case

For a few weeks, New Zealand's biggest retailer The Warehouse had a buy one, get one 50% off on all Hot Wheels. I was able to use the sale locally to get some 2016 Entertainment cars, but the 2016 G, H and J cases that were being found by others were no where to be seen locally.

Until the day after the sale, when G and H cases (sadly no J cases) arrived.
Sticking to my self imposed rule of only getting new models (with a few exceptions), my pick ups were somewhat limited, but still included some nice additions to the collection.

Fingers crossed the J case arrives in stores soon, along with maybe the K and L cases as school holidays are just around the corner.

Transformers from Japan and America

As has been the case for many months, the end of the month sees the release of Transformers in Japan with eventual arrival of those items in New Zealand at the start of the following month - this month was no exception, and the parcel from Japan had a friend in the form of some American Transformers arriving a few days before hand.

From the USA, I decided to spend a touch more than local releases would cost in order to make sure I got my hands on Voyager Onslaught so I could form Bruticus and his wave mate Sky Lynx who (despite his flaws) still looks awesome in all three forms.

Arriving from Japan was the second of the five Masterpiece releases releasing at the beginning of the year - MP-28 Hot Rodimus (Hot Rod) who once again looks amazing and comes with a ton of extra accessories to recreate key scenes from Transformers The Move (1986).

Joining Hot Rod was another Decepticon from the Transformers Adventure Line, Megatronus (or simply Megatron) who is great to add to the small but growing line up of Decepticons (but who is completely out of scale with the much much larger Optimus Prime released in 2015).

2016 Hot Wheels Entertainment

Hot Wheels Retro Entertainment (officially just called Entertainment since 2014) has been one of my favourite Hot Wheels series to collect since its introduction in 2013 and has added many cars into the collection. With the reduced number of waves in 2015, I thought the line was on its last legs but thankfully I was wrong as the 2016 release list was published over at Hot Wheels Collectors.

Sadly, the first two mixes of 2016 were mostly rehashes from previous years (a business decision I can understand) and so my rush to import the cases from the USA was reduced as there was a good chance that with the new case assortment code they would be marketed as "new" to distributors meaning they would be sold in New Zealand - well the first wave anyway.

Reading through one of the posts on a New Zealand Hot Wheels Facebook group, I noticed that someone had posted an image of the first 2016 Entertainment wave being found at "The Warehouse" (New Zealand's version of Walmart), and so I made plans the next day to head to those stores at lunch and after work to see what I could find. Later that evening I also received a text message from a collector friend who happens to work at the small Warehouse store just down the road from home advising they had received a case of Entertainment.

The next day, after making my way through 3 branches of the Warehouse, I had my Mix A requirements - a full set along with an opener of the Batman v Superman Batmobile, along with a set for spankymark72 and a set for another New Zealand collector who is currently out of the country.

*Waits for Mix 2*

Matchbox 2016 C Case

Checking out the stores before work, I was surprised to see that all the toys had once again been moved around and as part of the move, the Matchbox section was larger. Flicking through the pegs I quickly came across a 2016 B case car, and then some 2016 C case cars.

Needless to say, the next few minutes had me checking the pegs looking for cars I wanted and then checking others to see if they could be added to the purchase pile.

Fingers crossed that the D or E cases arrive soon, though the amount of cases on the overstock from 2016, 2015 and even 2014 has me worried that this might be it for the rest of the year.

Hot Wheels Mail In RAOK

A day at work is made even better when an email arrives from my good mate in the capital city advising that a parcel was on its way to me.

On opening the box, I was surprised to see a 2015 Kmart Mail In car. Needless to say, many thanks were sent back to my mate in the capital city, along with a return small parcel that I had been meaning to send for a while.

Now to hunt down the rest of the 2015 Mail In cars ... and the 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 ... you get the idea ...