Well, my first RLC’s have arrived; the first purchase, a Matchbox Collector’s exclusive, arrived last; the earlier arrival was an “Elite64” release which was the second car I bought as a newly minted “club member.” Now that they are here, I won’t say I’m disappointed, exactly…but I am a wee bit underwhelmed. Not by the models themselves, though; more by the experience of buying and receiving them, which is why this is the perfect Sunday post to follow the previous Saturday’s “Main Event,” the stunning experience of my first 2 visits to the new, improved Colorado Diecast.
To clarify where I’m going with this, I’m going to drag you kicking and screaming back into the #1 diecast collector’s debate: a debate so tropey and so tired that a great gnashing of teeth is liable to accompany my even mentioning it, but it’s relevant, so hold your nose…here we go….
Its a well-known fact that vintage toys are more valuable in the original packaging than they are unpackaged: that’s just how the vintage toy market is. This is especially pronounced among collectors of original Matchbox cars, where in some case the boxes are actually more valuable than the cars that came in them! Sadly, Matchbox cars were one of the very few toys of our era which could be unpackaged and repackaged with little to no evidence of such; in most cases, the toys we played with as kids were sealed in single-use packaging which could only be opened by being essentially destroyed. Damn the blister pack!
Recently I had a conversation with a friend about a series of Reddit threads he stumbled upon discussing this age old question. Now, I haven’t personally seen or read the quote he described, so I can only paraphrase, but he relayed a particularly graphic post from a user on this topic that read something like this:
“Keeping your Hot Wheels in the package so they are more valuable when you resell them is like not f*****g your girlfriend so she’s still a virgin for the next guy she dates.”
You get the idea. I’m not completely sure I agree, but I see the point; for instance, as of right now-on March 30 of 2025-I don’t see myself selling any of my toy cars, ever; I have no plans to do so, and in the past I virtually never have; I’ve traded a few, but I’ve rarely sold anything. But… what if I change my mind? A lot of collectors do! What if I’m hard up for money when I’m 65 or 70 years old and selling my vast lifetime collection of toys is my only way to keep paying my bills?
A lot of questions can be raised here as well, such as the generational nature of collectibles that likely means that old Hot Wheels, Matchboxes and Thunderjets will never be more valuable than they are right now, but without going there, I developed an easy answer to this question back when I was a kid: I would just buy 2 copies of every car I wanted, and keep one sealed and open the other. That was a great plan when you were buying “mainlines” for 99¢…but when you’re buying RLC collectibles for $30-$50 a piece, that gets a to be an expensive prospect!
Now that we’ve got that little discussion out of the way, I present the first of the RLC purchases I made in order of their arrival, so you can see why that little detour was relevant to the big reveal:
The “Elite64” McLaren M6GT
This is a beautiful model which is all metal with an opening hood as you expect from this high-end line of cars. I bought this particular car with the full intention of opening it and putting it on my diorama. I still plan to do that, but I was planning to do it this weekend and…ok I admit it: I chickened out. I want to put racing number decals on it and put it in the paddock in the place where a gold Lamborghini Miura currently sits, but something is so far preventing me from doing so. It must be that fear of being an impoverished old man, and knowing that my toys like this McLaren will be the only thing between me and living on the streets! AGHHHHH!!! :-0 No, more likely its the pristine nature of the packaging; the art, the detail, the whole thing is “high end” and thus is seems a shame to tear it open! Truth is, I probably will…at some point…but I haven’t yet!
And that brings us to the next arrival:
The “Matchbox Collectors” ‘79 Chevy Blazer
I had no idea when I bought this what I was going to get; I thought I was paying for a cool 1st issue model in a great color combo that would be delivered in a re-usable box like the originals. What I got instead is a 1:64 entombed in layer upon layer of plastic and cardboard: it was a box inside a box inside a box. Well, ok then: MatchBOX indeed!
First I opened the cardboard to find this orange box, which, once opened, revealed a cystal cube encased in a layer of thin tissue paper (which I could not remove without tearing it off, although I tried, as it was secured by tape). After that I was able to to open the flap of the case around the crystal display case to finally reveal the model inside from all angles. It appears to be screwed to the base along the lines of some of the higher-end M2 models.
So there’s a positive and a negative to this: to positive is that, unlike the McLaren, I can remove this car from the package and then put it back later, preserving its collectibility but still being able to enjoy it as a diorama piece should I so choose. I can get the tactile sensations of holding it in my hand and return it to it’s “as-factory” state. Which is all very nice. But…it isn’t really what I wanted. I wanted the car, not all this packaging. I would have been just as happy if it had come in an original style thin cardboard box that I could reopen and reclose! So its not bad, its just…kind of overdone.
So I guess I want to complain about everything, because having said all this about the Blazer, I go back and look at the McLaren and wish it had packaging like this so I could take it out and display it and then put it back later!
It seems to me like its M2, which I mentioned earlier, that has really gotten this right; I don’t collect M2 cars because their scale is a little too big for me, but I do have a few of them, and most of those I have bought all screwed down to bases in little jewel cases which are wrapped in thin cardboard packaging that can be hard to remove without damaging, but you usually can with enough care. This is how to do high-end 1:64(ish) die-cast packaging right: giving collectors like me to chance to touch and play with their cars and then put them back as-new. It seems that, even at the high-dollar full adult collector level, Mattel is still sticking Hot Wheels collectors with blister packs!
CONCLUSION?
The models are awesome; they were expensive, and in the case of the Matchbox it could have been less so without such elaborate and overdone packaging, but I am happy with the quality and the detail of both. I don’t really know what I’m going to do with either of them, but I’ll figure it out eventually, and I’m in no hurry; as you know from posts like this one, I have PLENTY of cars to open and store!
As for the whole experience of being a “Red Line Club Member…” big whoop. So I got a chance to buy these cars from the website…it wasn’t much different from buying them on ePay, except that maybe I paid just a little less for them than I would have from a reseller. It sure was no where near as exciting as going to Colorado Diecast, and I have to pay for postage besides. Maybe something more than just an email saying “thank for joining” is in order, Mattel? Where are my “perks?” I mean, c’mon: I didn’t even get a free T-Shirt!
What I would ask is for Mattel to get their act together on these collectibles and give us what I think most of us want: the right model in the right packaging for a price that isn’t highway robbery. Sometimes they get it right, but more often than not, they don’t…which means that age old debate-to open or not to open-is bound to continue!
I agree on excess packaging, for many products. Can you knock some off the price instead of lots of unnecessary packaging! I can understand the arguments about removing cars from the packaging and I guess it’s a personal choice we all have to make. I like being able to hold and roll the cars. I usually have several at a time on my desk that I like to have out. I can’t say I’m a true “collector” I guess. I buy cars I like and more than likely, the ones that I buy aren’t going to be big ticket items. It’s the nostalgia that I’m buying. Plus without packaging, I can display more easily and take joy in looking at them.
All we really want is reusable packaging! For dollar toys at bulk stores I get the blister packages, but why not give us boxes on the really premium stuff they’re getting $30+ for??? Its infuriating!