Hot Wheels INSANITY – Some Thoughts on this “Treasure Hunt” Thing…

In recent years, with the maturation of fully computerized design and factory controls (a topic your HB knows quite a bit about), as well as efficiency and cost-cutting measures, Mattel has gotten to the point where they are able to design, mold, cast and release new Matchbox and Hot Wheels models so fast, and with such variety, that its impossible for anyone who isn’t a full-time collector (if there is a such a thing!) to keep up. In the old days, both Hot Wheels and Matchboxes would be produced in the same colors with similar decals or labels for years at a time, with only some running changes, such as wheel types, being made. There are, of course, some very rare variations resulting in production variances, the very existence of which gave birth to the collector market. In the main, however, color changes were done at long intervals, and there are clear demarcs in these changes among collectors. Not so today; now, a particular paint scheme may appear on a Hot Wheels for only a few months or, in some cases-at least it seems-only a few weeks, before being changed again. This creates so much variety that even the most dedicated collectors can barely catalog them all!

This situation gets even more crazy when you add in all the “special” additional series that the same casting will be released in concurrently, like the “Classics,” the “Real Riders,” the “Premiums,” the “Car Culture” line, and of course, the infamous “Treasure Hunt” and “Super Treasure Hunt” versions…not to mention the super high-end, super-limited production “Red Line Club” versions, and countless other little series and collections, all of which are “super limited,” so get yours now! Add it all together and it becomes-frankly-overwhelming. Unfortunately, there is a somewhat dark side to this: it’s quite clear that the marketing department at Mattel has mastered the psychology of the “Collector’s Disease” and is using it to their advantage… and it seems there’s an almost endless number of people out there willing to play along.

A perfect example of this came up during my holiday big-box store jaunts and my recent visits to the collector’s haven Colorado Diecast with my friend Jason, which I documented here and here. Jason has demonstrated quote a talent for sniffing out and finding the chaff amongst the wheat, and on one of our X-mas season trips to Target, he came across a single casting of the “Fish’d & Chip’d”, a customzied Jaguar Mk X with a chopped roof and a conversion from a 4-door sedan to a 2-door coupe, originally released well over a decade ago, that I thought was spectacular! I wanted one too, but we looked and looked and determined he had found the only one in the store. Later that evening after we got back to his house with our loot, I examined that piece he had found and it was clear there was something very special about it: it appeared to have both a metal body and a metal base-which mainlines no longer do and haven’t for years-and high-end wheels, sharp, extremely detailed inkjetting, and a restrained, attractive color combination. The closer I looked at it, the more I noticed something printed on the card behind the car, and if I moved it around in the clamshell enough, I could read what it was: a small logo of a horizontal flame inside a circle, with some text just below it:

Well damn! Congratulations to my friend, but now we know why it was the only one in the store! Out of thousands of HW’s at that store that day, this was the only one to be had because that’s how it goes with Treasure Hunts: intentional, manufactured scarcity!

Well, I just had to have one of my own, so I went on to the usual site and found a 2-fer for what I thought was a fair enough price, but it wasn’t no $1.12 like what Jason paid for his, I can tell you! I got one to open and one stay in the package, and although I’m happy with them, I can’t help but feel a little irritation that someone else was able to score a pair of them for that retail price and made about a 500% profit in a matter of days. Of course, I was willing to pay that price, wasn’t I? So then, can I really complain???

Another case in point: I recently decided I just had to have the Hot Wheels casting of the Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato! This is one that I missed back in the early 2000’s and re-discovered it after finding that cool DB4 “High Speed Edition” that I focused on here. The Zagato-which has been out of production for years now-was released in the premium “Classics” series in 3 colors (red, green, and blue), and issued with both “standard” wheels and the more rare “Real Riders” wheels. Have you tried to find one of these lately? Well, I decided I had to have a blue one with the Real Riders wheels for my diorama, and I got lucky winning an auction for one for “only” $30, since I found 2 red ones being offered for $60 and a lone blue one like the one I won was on sale for $70!

Now, don’t think for a second that your ol’ HB here is sitting on some high throne of hypocrisy looking down on the “plebs” and laughing as they scramble for Treasure Hunts! In one of my posts from years ago, I admitted that I am just as prone as the next collector to the “fever” of chasing variations, of going crazy with that “gotta have it” mentality. Financial restraints, however, have forced me to control myself, and I long ago decided to only get the stuff I really like, without thought to what might super-rare or super-valuable. In other words, I buy what I want, not what I think will be “the next hot thing.” But sometimes I get miffed at the prices I have to pay due to the “scalpers,” those “professional eBayers” who always manage to get their hands on prime pieces before any of us working stiffs have the chance, only to turn them around and resell them at 4-10x what they paid for them. Hey, that’s the system, and its how this works: I can’t fault people for making a profit if that’s what the market will bear! But sometimes, you just want a cool diecast car! For this reason, I have mostly avoided the “Treasure Hunt” Hot Wheels because I just don’t have the time or the money to chase down all these super-limited special variations.

So…if you do, more power to you, but let’s bear in mind that there is a dark side to all this variety, and some of us have to keep our “collector’s disease” well in-check so we don’t wind up in the poor house because of chasing Hot Wheels! Love to hear your thoughts, dear readers, but what ever your experience is, keep collecting, and have fun doing it!