My only day of rest-and only half of it-came this Sunday afternoon after spending all day Saturday and Sunday morning in the office. It was a challenge, but I got it; the office network and routers are reconfigured and everything is working, and just in time for everyone to come pouring back into the office on Monday morning! Imagine how I would have looked to my co-workers come Monday and no one could access the web or email or their applications! HA! Another WIN! And now, as divinely prescribed, We Rest.
And what better way to rest than UNBOXING?! So let’s open some packages and see what goodies have arrived in the parcel vault, shall we?
Vintage Redlines
I’ve mentioned countless times that my vast collection of 1:64 die-cast contains precious few Hot Wheels “Spectraflames” and “Redlines” because I didn’t collect them when I was a kid like I should have, and they are now simply too expensive to do so. That doesn’t mean I don’t keep my eyes peeled for deals every now and then, however, and here are a couple I recently found: these are 2 castings I’ve never owned, and have always thought were really cool, so one day totally at random, I decided it was time to buy them.
First up we have the Maserati Mistral from 1969, though the real car was introduced 5 years earlier. This was the first of a long line of Maserati sports that would be named after a colloquial term for wind, and though its inline 6-cylinder engine carried over from the earlier 3500GT, the sleek hatchback body design by Frua updated the car nicely for the swinging ‘60s. The Hot Wheels model isn’t one of the most valuable of the early Redlines, but it is quite hard to find, and what’s important to me is that-again, to my knowledge-this is the only 1:64 model of this car ever made, by any company at any time! It’s worth owning just for that! This red one is one of the more common colors, but I like it, and I picked it up in slighty rough but still decent shape for only $50: a bargain for any in-tact Redline!
Next is a newer one, the “Sir Rodney Roadster” from 1974, so unlike the Maser, this one was made in your humble blogger’s lifetime, though I never had one even as a kid. While the Hot Wheels fan Wiki claims this was based on a Lotus, I beg to differ: to me it looks like a stylized hot rod MG TD (or TF) in the best Larry Wood tradition. I’ve always liked this car even though its from an era of Hot Wheels that in general I’m not particularly fond of, and in fact I liked it so much that I found a place for it on the diorama, namely in the infield with the yellow-themed cars of the Mooneyes kiosk! Looks good there, yes?
But wait, there’s more!
Switching over to 1:43 scale, here’s a few new toys for my bears! I don’t collect 1:43, but Corgi models are beautiful toys, and every once in a while I can’t help but pick up a few. Such was the case with these lots, a quartet of Land Rover 109”s in various colors and conditions, and a quintet of 60’s sports cars all in pretty decent shape at a very fair price. After a little cleaning they all presented very nicely, and these will make nice little additions to the pool of toys for my little crew of “Dream Catchers” to play with on Saturday mornings.
Hmmmm…Saturday mornings…I remember those! Hopefully at some point I’ll have two weekend days to myself again, and when I do, you can bet there’ll be something new and exciting to report from Drag City!
I’m sorry to hear about the long hours at work and hope it doesn’t take a bad toll on you! Congrats on the win and that’s impressive!!! Talk of impressive are the cool little gems that you acquired! These are really cool and must be great fun unboxing and having these! Some cool stuff for sure!