“Duty before pleasure,” goes an old German saying…or so I read. While sorting through your recent massive acquisition of die-casts hardly sounds like “duty,” there is an important part to do before the fun of opening them all. That work is “The Big Sort,” and it is the hardest part.
Yeah, because this is the part where I have decide which ones get opened and which ones won’t, and that’s surprisingly hard to do; at times it even becomes emotional. Some are no-brainers: like the first editions and dated holiday releases stay sealed. Outside the obvious, though, there are some really special ones – like, for example, some of the “HW Flames” series I mentioned last post – that I want to open so bad, but I know I shouldn’t, in part because they will probably be more valuable in the future than some of the others, but mainly because I just can’t really do anything with them! Without space on the diorama for a hundred or more additional cars, most of these would just wind up in a case. And really, that wouldn’t be bad, since I can still take them out and enjoy them, but it also seems like…well, if I’m going to do that, maybe I might as well leave them sealed.
Or… maybe not! You can’t reseal ‘em (@ least, not easily!) but you can change your mind about not opening them, so I reserve the right to revisit my choices in the future! As it stands now, things shook out very much the way I thought they would when I described the grand “Opening Orgy” plan here: maybe 1/3 of them are getting opened. I haven’t counted them exactly – there’ll be time enough for countin’ when the opening’s done, after all – but at a guestimate, I would say it’s just under 120 cars that will be unsealed and revealed on all sides.
Last weekend, which ended with a lovely excursion in my 1:1 scale toy car, turned into a fairly rotten and stressful week; in addition to some unexpected difficulties at work and very long hours because of them, it rained for days, giving my basement that damp “old house” smell, and although I had some house guests – which was nice – there was stress incurred there as well…not to mention more expenses and more bills; I fear the “toy money” is depleted early this month, owing partly to Colorado Diecast, and partly to trying to “stock up” on things I believe will soon become unavailable. A couple more days and the weekend will be here, but I will confess that Saturday May 10 is starting to look a little shaky; it may be Sunday, dear readers, before we can take a close look @ all these cars. It remains to be seen, but you know how “international travel” is these days, and I don’t want to tear into this pile without my fellow HW collector by my side!
So now that the models that will remain sealed – at least for now – has been decided, the final decision, which is: what to do put on the layout at Drag City, will be made after everything is opened. And that, dear readers, you just know will be the subject of a future post! So, as always, stay tuned!
Are any the ones you plan to open also ones that you could run on your Hot Wheels track? I imagine there are some that you wouldn’t want to risk damage. Have you ever thought of a diorama around one of your other racing sets? I keep thinking about a new HO scale train layout where I could potentially use some of my cars. Though the biggest issue is where to put it. I hope you are able to have a good weekend in spite of the rough week. I can totally see how these would / could be some really tough choices.