Trading Hot Wheels

 Welcome back collectors. You know how hard it is sometimes to find the Hot Wheels castings your looking for , either the stores in your area dont bring new mixes , either you get to them to late and other collectors get them , or even worse they are taken by the employees who sell them in different ways after . Well if you find yourself in one of the situations mentioned , you will want to look for different ways to get what you want.

The obvious choice will be to buy them from e-bay , thats the place where you can find almost everything and thats the place where they will get eventualy if they are taken by anyone whos only interest is to make money , to sell them. But this way is also the most expensive , many time the prices are raised to high for what many castings worth , but if you dont lack money then all is good.

The other way is to try and make use of those doubles you have gathered along the way and trade them with other collectors. This choice is very good for both sides of trading , because it helps both of you to get castings you could not find in the stores , without spending extra money.

Trading is not always that perfect , getting involved with the wrong peoples might get you in bad situations where you can loose the cars you wanted and the cars you had for trade , so it is always good to read the feedback of that particular collector you want to trade with if it comes to online trading , thru the post offices. If it's about hand to hand trading , meeting with the collector in person then it is alot more easier , because you can see the actual conditions of the castings you want to trade for.

 

I had my share of both bad and good trades. The bad trade came from online situation , where i never met the collector in person , i sent him my part of the trade , but he never sent me his part , you can see all about it HERE. The last trade i made was a good one , i met with the collector in person and i changed the Super Treasure Hunt '67 Chevelle SS 396 for the '11 Dodge Charger R/T , both from 2012.

'11 Dodge Charger R/T

 

It is only my 3^rd Super Treasure Hunt for 2012 , so i'm far away from completing the set , but i like the casting , i like that artwork on the card , the conditions of the blister and car and i'm happy for the trade.

Thank you for reading and i hope you find it enterteining. Have fun and enjoy the hobby.

***How was your last trade ? ***

2012 Treasure Hunts Complete Set

2. Ducati 1098                                                                       2. '41 Willys

4. Ford GT                                                                          3. '69 Chevelle SS 396

6. Tyrell P34                                                                    5. '69 Corvette

7. '67 Custom Mustang                                                                  8. '52 Chevy Malibu

9. Ferrari 430 Scuderia                                                        10. '65 Chevy Malibu

11. Ford Shelby GR-1 Concept                                               12. '65 Ford Ranchero

13. Surf Crate                                                                            14. '92 Ford Mustang

15. '70 Chevy Chevelle Convertible

  Welcome everyone. This is the complete set of the 2012 Treasure Hunts series. As you can see this set consists in both long card and short cards castings. They are in the original packaging (this is how i keep my t-hunts). The long cards are international releases, while the short cards are both international and European releases. The European ones i found myself in the stores and with the other ones i had a lot of help from collector friends from our YouTube community.

This is the only series i had completed so far since i started collecting and it makes me really happy, it is an achievement, because as you may know by now collecting in this part of the world is very complicated, especially if you are a collector that likes to complete series. I also want to try and complete the 2011 (year i started collecting) and the 2013 series.

***Hope you enjoy my pictures and let me know in the comment section below what is the last series you did complete. See you next time and have fun collecting.***

First Time Shippers and Special Series

  Finding Hot Wheels in the stores is very easy depending on the country, but here in my country it is a real challenge, there are very few stores that has them and even those stores do not have more than 3-4 of the normal pegs filled, except for holidays, where in that time you can find about 5-6 extra pegs filled. The only ways they have been arranged in the stores was on regular pegs and a few times in dump bins, or BOD (Bin Of Death) how they are called between collectors.

Sometimes it is really hard to look thru them on those normal pegs, either they are placed to high and you cant reach, or they are very crowded, no spaces between pegs or cars, making it impossible not to knock them down and make a mess or even worse, bend or break the cards and blisters. The only way is to take it slow, one by one, but this way you will spend a lot of time there, just to go thru about 3 pegs and find out at the end that was nothing interesting for you. I haven't seen dump bins around here in a long time so i am not going to talk to much about them, but let me tell you that they are even worse for cards and blisters, from here the name "Bin of Death".



In countries like USA there are already alternatives to this problem, the introduction of "shippers". These shippers are in more than one model, from my understanding :

*1. Medium sized boxes split into locations where it can be added 7-10 cars in each location, making it easier to go thru them without damaging any of them.

*2. Medium sized pegs, where it can be added many cars on them, but with spaces in between the pegs, avoiding crowding, where you can look easy on every peg without damaging anything.

One of this shipper has made its way in my country for the first time and i really find it very helpful, it made the experience for me a lot better and i was able to search all of it without damaging any of the cars there and it was very fast, without time consuming.

Pegged Shipper



Also this part of the world only got regular mainline Hot Wheels, no special series, other than the Color Shifters. Well that has changed, because in the same store i was able to spot castings from "Team Hot Wheels" series and a few "Monster Jam" ones. A few weeks ago i was able to spot some of the long card Hot Wheels from the 90's, as you saw in my previous post, so all of these makes me hope that things will change around here and maybe in the near future we are also going to receive the most wanted and highly collectible series that countries like USA have them. There is a first time for everything, right ?

Team Hot Wheels serie

Monster Jam castings

Hope you enjoyed the reading, happy collecting, have fun and stay safe.

***What new things have you found in your stores lately ?***

Ways of Storing Hot Wheels

  If you have many Hot Wheels and you are planning on making a huge collection, or you want to keep them in the best condition possible, you don't display them, don't like to keep them discarded all over the house and keep them off the dust then storing them is the best solution. It doesn't matter you collect them loose or carded because there are many solutions for both ways. Storing them also allows you to resell them in the future or passing them down to another person. In this post i will present a few ways on what to use for storing your Hot Wheels , these are just a few examples, from here you can always find alternatives that suits you best.

***Plastic Cases***

This solution is very good for both ways of collecting and its the most used. The plastic cases will give the best protection and also they can be found in many sizes. These are not made specifically for storing Hot Wheels, but they are great for this. In US there are many cases , some of them are called "hot cases" for carded castings and "jammers" for loose castings (jammers will store 48 loose cars). Over there they can be found in stores like Wall-mart and Sears . In other countries, even if they don't have the same model cases , there can be alternatives and should be found in any department or container store. Of course the best place where everybody, everywhere can get them is E-bay, but this way you also have to take in consideration the shipping. The prices vary, depending on the area and store, but for the long term and if you care about your collection it's all worth it.



"Hot case" for carded castings

"Jammers" for loose castings

You can also use one of these tool boxes, like i use, for the loose castings and they can be found in department stores, probably everywhere in the world.



Tool box for loose castings



***Cardboard Boxes***

If you find those plastic cases to expensive or you don't have money to spend then the cardboard boxes is the best solution. They can be found very cheap everywhere, or you can just keep the used boxes that came from buying different electronics and other things. This solution is not as reliable as the plastic cases solution because the protection is not as high (it will bend or break easily if you drop something heavy on it or if you drop it from a higher ground). Also this solution is not secure against humidity, so store these boxes in a dry place and somewhere above the ground in the case of a flood. This solution is appropriate for carded cars, for the loose ones you will also have to add some plastic baggies and some ingenuity to arrange them, to prevent them from scratches.

Cardboard box for loose and carded castings

Depending on what solution you have chosen store the box in a closet, sideboard, under the bed (if you have space and the box is small), pantry, storeroom, attic or anywhere safe and this way it will also prevent them from cluttering the room. I use both ways of storing and you can find a video HERE, i don't have "hot cases" or "jammers" in my country so i used alternatives.

Hope you find this post useful and helpful, also if you have different solutions, or better ones leave a comment below.

***What do you use for storing your Hot Wheels ?***

Getting Help from Friends

Mainline castings from 1997 , 2006 , 2011 and 2013

Mainline castings from 2012 and 2013

Mainline castings from 2013

Treasure Hunts from 2012 and 2013

Sometimes , it's really hard to get your hand on all the casting that you want , it's very hard to complete a serie just by finding all of them by yourself in the stores , flea markets or online shops thus help from another person is needed and always welcomed. In this hobby you should never stay alone , it's always good to make friends and get to know many peoples who are in the same hobby as yourself , especially if they are from the same area , city , country .

Getting connected with peoples in this hobby can help you complete the series or find the castings that you want , you could trade with them or share information related to news about different stores or places where new castings are brought , you could make the collecting much easier for all of you , so DON'T BE ALONE , SHARE the hobby and it will be much more rewarding , satisfying and especially fun .

I am doing so and all the cars you see in the pictures i could never find them by myself in the stores , i got them as a gift from a collector friend from New Zeeland (you can find him on youtube with the name of fyiahflash). He wanted to help me , especially , with the 2012 Treasure Hunts that i wanted to complete and offcourse he added a few extras , all of them being on my wanted list. I'm very happy about them and i know i had alot of help along the way since i started collecting , i appreciate the friends that helped me and the cars and i hope all of you out there feel the same about all the help that you received with your collecting.

How much help did you get with your collection and what was the last package you received ?