We all have something we like collecting. For some (like me) it is books and magazines. For others (Chad) it is pet rocks. For the guy that ran this eBay ad, it was Hot Wheels cars…by the thousands. This guy spent 10 years amassing one of the most complete and meticulously kept Hot Wheels collections in the United States. As a wise man once said, “There is a fine line between hobby and mental illness.” The guy running the ad seems pretty normal and well adjusted, he just kind of got hung up on the Hot Wheels thing FOR A DECADE. It can all be yours for $20,000. Whaddya say?
We’re ribbing the seller some, but the reality is that this is a heavy duty collection that is housed in some pretty amazing, custom made wooden display cases that actually make the whole thing seems somewhat artistic. The cases have special glass and other pieces in them to protect the cars from light degradation and malfeasance of all kinds. Simply put, the seller was REALLY serious about keeping these cars in nice shape. Since I don’t speak Klingon Hot Wheel, here’s the text of the ad so you can get a full grasp of what our man is selling –
This is the largest collection of the numbered series you will find, I know of only one larger in the united states. I started collecting in 1989 and as you can see got the bug bad. I ran two auto body shops in arizona and made this collection part of my business to share the fun with everyone. My ebay name was variationjunkie and now is variationjunkie1and in the 90s I was all over ebay.
So about the collection. As you see all the cars have been encased in custom oak and glass cases since acquired. These cases have been handmade with uv glass to protect the packages, they have a french cleat at the top to set the cover on and they screw in at the bottom for security. There are 64 cases in all some that are 5′ 10″ tall 6″ wide and 4″ deep, the larger ones are 16″ wide to hold three rows of cars. Each single case holds approx. 36 cars. Each treasure hunt set has its own smaller case to hold just the TH set of that year. To have these cases built I have invested over 10k just in the ability to display these hotwheels to the public in complete saftey.
I have a computer list of each and every hotwheel and its variations. There are many variations of each car and many variations that are one of a kind and acknowledged by other hotwheel collectors and some by mattel employees. These cars are all in the original package of course and the packages are all very much top grade. I have all the treasure hunt series in these years and the complete first Zamac series from the convention in LA in 1998 I believe. There are approximately 3000 cars in this collection.
The list is about 70 pages and as of yet have not figured out how to load them on ebay. I will be happy to email the list to anyone so just drop me an email.
Oh and the most important this collection has every tough number there is, 271,50,51,12, 77 in CTW, 94 in BW, 114 in black, 168 in silver only one known, 245 in BWW, 320 in 7S, 349 in yellow,368 in 7S, 429 in PC5S, 448 in 3S, 593 in chrome, 649 in 5S, 672 purple interior, 714, 855 in 5H, 915 in red and 915 blue with white interior, 1106 in 5S, just to name a few, and all the military tuff ones, there is 20k worth of just the rarest of all hotwheels, and the variations are out of control! just for an example the first page of my list shows #2 has three variations, #6 has four and the list goes on. Most collections have one of each and these are not error variations they are true documented variations in Tomarts.
Just the man hours to assemble a collection this size is crazy, I spent 10 years hunting in excess.
Thanks to Robert Martin for the tip!
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE SOME PHOTOS AND THE CLICK THE EBAY LINK TO SEE THE AD WITH ALL THE INFO –
CLICK HERE to see this giant Hot Wheels Collection that is for sale for tens of thousands of dollars!
“To each his own…”
I was into collecting these when I was younger. Some HW cars are worth a lot of money. Probably a fair asking price, but like any hobby, the people who would be interested in buying someone’s collection have usually spent all their money on a collection of their own already.
No. I already have more hot wheels than I want.
I had a small collection of Johnny Lightning Mopars that I gave to CudaDans daughter, and yes fellow Bangshifters, she uses them.
He has $3000 in Chinese toys and they did not appreciate at all. He started collecting twenty years too late.
Uh…………….hell no!
My best friend had over 25,000 die cast cars. Dwarfed this collection. Literally couldn’t sell any of them. Ended up giving them away to anyone with kids, donated the rest. At one point a full size Ford pickup had the entire bed full, as well as the back seat of the extended cab. Donated to charity.
For $20K I could buy aprox 10-20 real project cars and have money left over for beer and an air freshener.
In short- no, not this collection. He’d make more money parting this collection out. It’s a lot of work, though.
There are individual Hot Wheels (yes, just a single 1:64) vehicle that sell for more than this..