Many years ago when I owned a collection of 1:1 scale toy cars, my biggest challenge was not the expense of buying them, registering or insuring them, or maintaining them; it was storing them. I was lucky enough to know some people who owned some land where I could keep a lot of my cars, but things change over time, and when the real estate market here in Colorado went insane around 2012 it was all I could do just to find a place to keep my 18 foot long land yachts. This difficulty was one of the principal reasons why, as I began the long and slow recovery from my financial wipe-out in 2010, I never returned to building real cars but regressed back to my childhood version of the hobby, the toys and scale models. Now that the country is entering another era of economic hardship brought on by the same kinds of policies designed to benefit the 1% at the expense of everyone else, it appears I made the right choice.
As you probably have noticed from the numerous photos on this blog, I keep my slot cars in the same type of cases that I use for my vast die-cast collection. These cases, which were originally designed by Matchbox (no surprise there!) are made from vinyl covered cardboard and filled with plastic trays resembling egg crates. My “Toy Room” currently contains 48 of these cases, all full or very nearly full. Like everything else they have become quite expensive in recent years, which is why I was lucky to find the perfect place to for me keep my newly built collection of original Aurora T-jets: the 72 slot stacked garage made by the Tara toy company.
I don’t know when this design was originally released, but I know I’ve had one since my own childhood sometime around 1981 or ’82. I don’t remember the particulars of how I acquired it, but I do remember that I wanted it to keep my collection of “other brands” of 1:64 die-casts; since I was exclusively a Matchbox collector in those days, I wanted a place to keep my “non-Matchboxes” segregated from the rest of my collection (queue howls of derision from woketards about “housing discrimination” here). To this day I still have this case, and it is still filled with the Hot Wheels, Majorettes, Sikus, Kidcos, and various other brands that found their way into the endlessly expanding toy car world of my youth.
It wasn’t easy to find another one, but I really scored when I came upon this unused N.O.S. example for a price that, while not cheap, was still within reason, and I got cheap shipping as a bonus-something harder than ever to find!
Thus, the limit was set: 72 of these Aurora originals, at which point I have to stop, because it has to end somewhere…right?
As of last count there are 68 cars (not counting the non-functional “Vibrator” historical pieces), and the 3 MEV acquisitions I hope will arrive before the end of the year will bring me to 71, meaning I’ve got room for one more…
“There room for one more Honey” I didn’t realize how many cases you had. They are really good storage cases and I did the same thing grouping brands and types of cars. Your collection is truly a wonder!