Hot Wheels collectors- often disliked by retailers, reviled by parents, and hopelessly addicted to toys, there are few places left where seekers of the redline can go to really indulge the craving. Occasionally, you might find one or two special cars in an antique store, or you might find one of the standard treasure hunt hot wheels in your local K-mart or Target store- if you're lucky. More likely is that you will have to look for days on end, and still not find the really rare hot wheels cars that you need for your collection.
Where to find the Hot Wheels redlines
Redline hot wheels cars, the little beauties from the sixties and seventies, are rare finds these days, even in places where you would expect to find redline hot wheels. The reason? Nothing less than the fact that these little toys are almost wholly traded on the internet. Ebay has become the single largest marketplace for Hot wheels Redline cars, and for good reason. While there are lots of Hot Wheels redline collectors in America, there are as yet few,specialty Hot Wheels stores. A storefront would have to charge an arm and a leg to turn a profit even on the new, carded Hot wheels, even if he/she could talk Mattel into supplying them. As for the redline Hot wheels, maybe there's a market there in some areas, but redlines are a specialty in the field. Ebay's just got it all over a brick and mortar store. So, check there for deals if you need to finish up your redline Hot wheels collection of the rarities from the sixties and seventies.
finding Hot wheels Real Riders presents less of a problem, though chances are you won't find mint-condition Hot Wheels in your search. For this one, check Garage Sales, Flea markets, and estate sales. You'll find them lingering around the bottom of old toy boxes or even in bins filled with toy cars marked cheap. The trick is that you've got to pay attention, and don't take anything for granted. Another unusual place to find Real rider Hot wheels is in the bagged toys in thrift stores. As collectors of a (moderately) obscure hobby, we have the privilage of knowing what we're looking at when we look at it better than someone dumping hot wheels and matchbox toys out of a donation sack into a plastic bag.
Finding carded Real Rider hot wheels, though is another job for Ebay. Chances are you won't find real rider hot wheels for a reasonable price at your local antique mall or flea market, but at least with Ebay, you've got a chance to have them at a semi reasonable price.
So, you're sick of searching around town for the treasure hunt hot wheels cars? So are the rest of us. The Super Treasure Hunt hot wheels are almost as pointless to try to turn up in a store as are redlines. While it is technically possible, there's a lot to be said for store employees paying attention to what they're putting out on the peg hooks, and setting aside the high value Hot wheels treasure hunt cars they can buy themselves and put on Ebay. Pretty lucrative, no? So, you're stuck on those- Go to Ebay! Here's the trick, though. Regardless of what hot wheels treasure hunt car it is, the price is ALWAYS really high in the first two months after the car is released, and the dealers (and kids from Wal-Mart) are looking to pump up the price of these rare hot wheels cars. Invariably, however, a few months after the cars are released, the prices drop by as much as $10-$20. Take for instance the Larry's Garage Hot Wheels. Right after release, the cars with signatures on the bottom were being touted as being the "treasure hunt hot wheels" of the series. This proved not only ridiculous, but problematic in that it was the Ebay dealers who were pushing these hot wheels cars as rare. In truth, there are only a few of the cars in the production run which are particularly rare, and the signature on these rarer cars only adds about $2-$3 to the value of the basic hot wheels car. After collectors like you and I began finding them with a fair amount of regularity with signatures, the dealer's gig was up! Suddenly it was only a little bit harder to turn up those "rare" signature cars. The production numbers of all the hot wheels cars, not being released to the public, are up for guesstimating.
Between Ebay and your local shopping excursions, you should be able to turn up a fair amount of cool hot wheels cars, and build a collection of redline, real rider, or treasure hunt hot wheels that is not only impressive, but will hold or increase in value over time!