Hong Kong Recap - Hot Wheels

Over the next week (or two) there will be a series of blog entries regarding my finds (or lack of finds) from my recent trip to Hong Kong.

I was warned before heading over to Hong Kong that Hot Wheels had only a small presence in the country and that Matchbox was basically not sold in the country. For the most part, this turned out to be very true - Toys R Us had some nice areas devoted to Hot Wheels but the range of cars at the stores were somewhat small with mainline cars being several cases behind what was being found in New Zealand as I left. In saying that, I did see examples of the Ford Performance 8 car set, the Gran Turismo 8 car set and some character cars that I had not seen in person before.

My only purchase was a single car - and was quite by accident.
I cam across a small wire bin (aka, a dump bin) at an out of the way Toys R Us store and started flipping the cards. One of the flips revealed a car that I was not expecting to find - a Super Treasure Hunt Bad Mudder 2. It wasn't in the best shape, but one can never leave a Super behind

Hong Kong Bound

In previous blog posts I have mentioned that my collecting has been a little down in 2016 because I have been saving for a planned overseas holiday.

Finally after a very long 5 month countdown, departure time is near
In 12 hours I depart for an almost two week holiday in Hong Kong, a place I have wanted to head too for many many years.

Hopefully on my return I can share some stories about hunting for die cast, Transformers, Star Wars, Marvel, Lego and maybe other items I didn't know I needed!

Hot Wheels 2016 J Case

The Hot Wheels 2016 J case assortment finally arrived at local retailers, several weeks after the top of the country received and around the same time as K cases also arrived in stores at the top end of New Zealand.

Armed with a list of the new models, I was able to be the first to a new dumping of cases into an existing dump bin and was able to get the three models I was after - two new models for 2016 along with a repaint of a new model.

The brand new 73 BMW is an excellent new casting and I eagerly await its transition into a premier line with the inclusion of front and rear headlights.

Several days later, my local Toyworld received a restock of basic cars and I was initially disappointed when I saw it was the J case considering the finds of K cases around the country. As I watched the staff member open the bottom of the box, she commented she was looking for the "rubber tire" car as she had heard they were hard to find. As she completed her search of the case, I asked to look at the top half.

A few seconds later I pulled out a single car and advised the staff member "this is what a rubber tire Hot Wheels looks like". Yes, I had managed to find a Super Treasure Hunt Batmobile, after a staff member had gone through the case looking for Super Treasure Hunts and also Batmobiles. I paid the retail price for the car and walked out of the store very very happy.

Come on K (and L) cases!

Hot Wheels Entertainment Mix B

Checking one of the Hot Wheels Facebook groups from New Zealand, I saw a post that Entertainment (otherwise known as Retro Entertainment) Mix B had been found at a Toyworld store in the upper part of the country. Checking an independent toy store website located in roughly the same part of the country, I saw that they also had the Mix B wave listed, but with several models already sold out.

I asked at my local Toyworld if they were going to be getting in the Entertainment range as the assortment was actually advertised on special in the toy catalogue and received the typical "don't know" answer that I have become accustomed to over the years.

Resigned to just waiting and seeing if the items would appear locally in the school holidays, I took another look at the independent stores website and saw that all items were restocked and so placed an order.

With a public holiday and weekend in the way, the delivery was delayed several days, but eventually turned up - sadly in an extra large box with no packaging to protect the contents on its journey. As with the first Entertainment mix of 2016, the second mix contained a mixture of "popular" castings from previous years along with a brand new casting in the form of the Batwing from Batman v Superman and a recently released casting in the form of the Aston Martin DB10 from James Bond Spectre.

Already waiting for Mix C to be released and fingers and toes continue to be crossed that the line continues into 2017!

RLC 2016 - Studebaker and Gulf

For those following the blog and/or my YouTube videos, you will know that I became very critical of the Hot Wheels Red Line Club in 2015 after the "upgrade" that saw the order process for new releases become so much harder along with a general feeling of "Mattel will never fix this". As a result, when it came time to renew my membership for 2016, I decided not to ... a decision that part of me regretted once I saw the first couple of cars that the club offered for 2016.

Thankfully my good mate in the capital city came to my rescue and was able to secure the first two special edition releases at cost (and I actually think they were sold to me below cost), and today after a few extra days in the New Zealand postal system they arrived ... and they are amazing.

First up is the 1963 Studebaker Champ, presented in a display box similar to the "Toy Fair" cars and a few other special releases. In hand, this release is spectacular and it surprises me that is is still available in the shop.

Next is the Porsche 993 GT2 done in the very pleasing Gulf colour scheme. As expected, this amazing piece sold out very quickly and commands some serious coin on eBay. Pictures just do not do this release justice and neither can my limited vocabulary ... so lets let the pictures do all the talking!

Huge thanks to my good mate from the capital city for the hook up, and if the Red Line Club continues with these excellent releases then maybe they will get a member in the 2017 year again.

Greenlight

One of my things to do when I have down time is to check on what is coming up in the Greenlight world and see if any make it to my wish list - new castings are an almost instant purchase, but older castings have to go through a process to make sure I don't have too many of the same casting. In early March a slew of new releases with many new castings were released and I was quick to put in an order - though for unknown reasons my supplier took their sweat time getting the parcel out. However, finally the parcel arrived and a bunch of new cars can be added to the collection.

Hollywood Series 12 saw the debut of two new castings, the Wagon Queen from National Lampoon's Vacation and the 1994 Jeep Wrangler YJ from Clueless. Joining the release and my order were a casting favourite, a casting I just had to have because of the show it was from and its awesome packaging and then a new casting to the collection (though not a new casting).

Country Roads Series 14 saw a shared debut of the Jeep Wranger - this time a 1990 model with the roof on, and more releases of the Ford F-150 and the Ram 1500 which are quickly becoming Greenlight favourites. I am slightly worried about how quickly the ladder on the Ford will break when the packaging is opened ...

The remaining models were chosen because a) race car and b) more Japanese!
Nuff said!

Already planning the next import, though it may need to wait until my return from overseas along with a serious thought how the continued storage of all of these open cars.

Matchbox Best Of Series

Over the years that I have been collecting, there have been a few premium offerings from Matchbox - the Lesney Edition from 2010 and 2011, the 60th Anniversary Collection from 2013, the cancelled Supreme Heroes from 2015 and now in 2016 the Matchbox Best Of series has finally made it out to retailers.

Based on Lamley preview videos, I was pretty excited to get my hands on this set and eventually started seeing the single cars for sale (at a marked up price) on eBay and decided that I would wait until I could find a seller who was offering sealed cases at a reasonable price. Eventually I found that seller and organised to ship the case first to my USA shipping address and then eventually onto New Zealand.

From my years of collecting, one thing I have learnt is that Matchbox cases are all the same in the United States (and thus in New Zealand when offered at retail), so I was confident based on opened images that the sealed case would give me all 10 cars of the first (and only?) wave.

Sadly as I opened the case on camera, I started pulling out doubles I wasn't expecting to see and even a triple; and by the time I had gotten to the end of the case I was missing several cars from the set ... a look at the box under different light shows another piece of tape that didn't match the factory sealed and I guess my sealed case luck ran out.

Several days before the sealed case arrived from the USA, I was shocked and surprised to see not only the Jeep series at my local Toyworld, but also the Best Of series hanging on the pegs. Since I was the first one to see them, I was able to check them all out and along with the Jeep set, I purchased several vehicles as openers ... as it turns out, the majority I purchased as openers came in the case as unexpected doubles, but I did also thankfully pickup one car I hadn't received from the sealed case, the BMW 1M.

Fingers crossed that other collectors in New Zealand reply to my request for assistance to track down the missing cars, or my local Toyworld brings in another case ...