Any Hot Wheels experts on these boards?

GTS-R 001

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Any Hot Wheels experts on the board?

I have a Highway 35 collectors set, #62 of 1000.

Has all 35 cars plus the ZED car, which I have read being worth $400-$500 by itself.

Any idea what the set is worth?



 

ViperGeorge

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PM Chris Marshall. I think he sold some kind of Hot Wheels thing for BIG dollars and bought his Viper with the proceeds. Google Chris Marshall and highest price Hot Wheels.
 

ACRucrazy

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http://cjonline.com/stories/111499/kan_hotwheels.shtml

Overland Park man gets $72,000 for rare Hot Wheels van
Posted: Sunday, November 14, 1999
By BRIAN MCTAVISH
Kansas City Star
OVERLAND PARK -- Talk about your trade-in value.

Hot Wheels toy car collector Chris Marshall, of Overland Park, has struck a deal to sell the rarest of all Hot Wheels vehicles -- a one-of-a-kind, hot-pink die-cast prototype of a 1969 Volkswagen Beach Bomb van.

Price? $72,000.

"It's the holy grail of Hot Wheels," Marshall said.

Marshall, 37, already has received a nonrefundable deposit of $1,000 from a California collector who wishes to remain anonymous. With the balance he plans to purchase another set of high-dollar wheels: a 2000 Dodge Viper.

"Coincidentally, it's about $72,000," Marshall said of the street-legal race car, which actually lists for $76,000. "I've decided to trade a toy collector's dream car for a genuine dream car."

If that sounds frivolous, that is because it is, said Marshall, a husband and father of two who makes his living selling high speed and wireless access to the Internet. He has bought and sold several thousand Hot Wheels since taking up serious collecting of the itty-bitty roadsters more than three years ago.

"I told my wife, 'I've bought these cars out of my own fun money,' " Marshall said. "I didn't take food out of the babes' mouths or the shoe fund or anything. I said, 'If I realize this much money, then I'm going to spend it on something that I would not otherwise have.' "

Hot Wheels enthusiasts, 50,000 strong, have been vicariously thrilled by the deal as reported in toy collecting publications and on Hot Wheels Web sites.

The price, believed to be the largest ever offered for a Hot Wheels car, seemed "a little high" to Jon Brecka, who writes a monthly Hot Wheels column for Toy Cars and Vehicles.

"But it's like an art piece," Brecka said. "Is some painting by Van Gogh worth $49 million? It's worth what anybody will pay for it."

Hot Wheels hobbyist Trish Glore, who operates CB's Die Cast Car Museum Web site out of Alamogordo, N.M., has 11,000 Hot Wheels and counting in her collection. But she doesn't expect their value to skyrocket in the wake of Marshall's stellar sale.

"That (sale) is so rare it really won't have that much effect on your everyday, average collector who runs into Wal-Mart and buys their cars for a dollar," she said. "It does give us all a sense of envy."

Even if she had unlimited funds, Glore, 44, doesn't know if she could feel good about plunking down 72 grand for an item destined to rest on a shelf.

"But would I sell it for any amount if I had it?" she said. "No way. The historical value is too important."

Marshall became part of toy collecting history in March 1998, when he traveled to California and paid a former Hot Wheels engineer $9,000 for his 250 vintage Hot Wheels, including 25 prototypes.

The acknowledged jewel of the collection was a "spectraflame pink" rear-loading Beach Bomb with two tiny surfboards sticking out of the back. Mattel mass-produced the Beach Bomb starting in 1969, but never with surfboards loaded in the rear and never in pink, the rarest and most desirable of Hot Wheels colors.

Until Marshall's find, no pink Beach Bomb prototype was known to exist. Marshall knew he had found something special. He just didn't know how special.

"The guy who sold it to me said, 'I hope you get $10,000 for it,' " Marshall said. "I didn't know if I would get that much."

He wasn't in a hurry to find out. Marshall enjoyed showing off his prize possession to other Hot Wheels devotees.

"When I announced that it had been found I literally got hundreds of e-mails saying, 'You've found the holy grail of toys! You've found the rarest thing ever!' It was incredible. I had people offer to buy it on the spot. One guy said, 'I'll give you $10,000' for it.

"When I took it to a local toy show in May of '98, I had a guy offer to trade me a new $25,000 Blazer for it even up. I didn't want a Blazer."

A year later Marshall's priorities had changed. The demands of work and family were taking up more time, and tracking down old Hot Wheels was no longer quite the buzz he knew it still was for thousands of other collectors.

"A lot of people like me get in to relive their youth," Marshall said. "Smelling the oil that they use on these cars brings back all the memories from the late '60s and early '70s, when it was the dominant toy -- which it still is, by the way. It's the hottest-selling toy in the world. They've sold over 2 billion of these things."

Marshall got to thinking: Beach Bomb prototypes were listed in a Hot Wheels price guide for $7,000 each, and a pair had recently sold above guide for $25,000. He also knew that pink Hot Wheels typically sell for five to 10 times more than other colors. What might the rarest pink one of all fetch?

He decided the time was right to sell when in June the Ultimate Hot Wheels Web site praised it as the "pinnacle" of the hobby and estimated its value at $70,000 to $120,000.

Suddenly, Marshall had visions of a Viper sports car revving in his head.

"I thought, 'Why do I have a toy car in a plastic case, when I could have a really awesome car in the garage?' " he said.

In July, Marshall began a $7,000 campaign to advertise his treasure throughout the toy collecting community. When it sold in October for $72,000, more than 10 times the guide price, the still-proud owner felt his first twinge of separation anxiety.

"It is hard to let go," Marshall said. "It was my 15 minutes of fame in the collecting community. Everybody knew who Chris Marshall was because, by golly, he had the holy grail of toys."

But has Marshall really sold his Beach Bomb? He still is owed $71,000.

"I find in this business a lot of people will back out on even nominal stuff," cautioned Ron Reusch, a vintage Hot Wheels dealer who runs Collectors Toystop in Milwaukee, Wis. "I don't want to jinx the deal, but it's not done until it's done."

Done or not, Marshall pledges to go ahead and buy his Viper, on which he already has put down a deposit of $5,000. Of course, he is still counting on the rest of his Beach Bomb money coming through.

"It sure as (heck) better," he said. "Otherwise my wife will no longer be happy with me

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Y2K5SRT

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Ah, the memories. :D Unfortunately I left the world of 1:64 scale cars for the more exciting world of 1:1 scale cars around that same time, so no idea what new diecast cars are bringing these days. There are a couple avid Hot Wheels collectors that occasionally post here that should be able to jump in and help. Otherwise I would just search eBay as I am fairly certain it is still the largest market for diecast. Good luck!
 

Hoosier Daddy

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Ahh the old redlines. Parents would buy us one a month. Usually by the second week the last vehicle was unrecognizable with a few missing pieces and frame damage. Just like my Tom Seaver rookie card, didn't know who Jerry Koosman was so I used a black magic marker to make him disappear.
 

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