Hot Wheels Collectors: We Don’t Need Their Scum
This isn’t meant to generalize ALL Hot Wheels collectors. It just concerns a small group of them I used to encounter. Unless they are all like this. Then fuck em.
Last night I was thinking about how I haven’t set foot in a Toys R Us for a good three years. There’s a Target about a half mile from my place, so I always head there if I feel like some cold-call toy shopping. Just popping into a department store for toys isn’t as suspenseful as it used to be. Since the internet, we just gather; there’s no hunting really.
Anyways, I used to go to the Toys R Us in Rockaway, NJ about twice a week. New shit came in on Wednesdays, so I’d always go that day after school. Give them underpaid kids time to stock my shelves, gnomesayin’? But Saturdays were always my jam. I would get up around 7:00 and drive my Chevy Celebrity to Toys R Us. Once there, I would have to stand outside with the other collectors until opening. I never knew if they had any new Star Wars shit in, but that was part of the fun.
Outside there would always be a handful of dudes, usually Star Wars heads. We’d shoot the shit, maybe talk about trading…and stay far away from the huddle of Hot Wheels collectors. They’d be standing in a circle right up against the door, chain smoking, eyeballing us, and looking over their checklists. They were older than us – maybe in their forties – and always reeked of shadiness. I swear they wore the same clothes every weekend.
A wary employee would finally come over and open the doors, and the Hot Wheels crew would bum rush the poor kid. They’d charge up to their aisle, where the employees would have cases of new stock just sitting there. They wouldn’t even bother putting the cars on the fucking shelf; they knew there was no point. These fools would just tear through like locusts and leave die-cast cars scattered all over the floor.
I’ve been to midnight Star Wars toy releases: Episode 1, 2, and Clone Wars. Each time, everyone showed respect for the store, employees, and other collectors. And there were hundreds of us in there at once. But this small amount of Hot Wheels collectors were a band of cutthroat, obnoxious, douchebags that left that small area of Toys R Us looking like Baghdad. They’d dig through the cases and just leave what they didn’t need on the floor. Then they’d ask the employees if there was any more stock in the back. “Everything is out here,” would be the answer but these dudes would still throw them dagger eyes. Why the store ever put up with these dicks is beyond me.
Maybe I’m just bitter Mattel never made a Hot Wheels Chevy Celebrity.
- Oh Mars
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:27 pm
I have witnessed the same behavior, and it’s really the thing that stopped me from going to toy stores at all. The shame was just too immense.
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Nail.On.The.Head.
I toy hunt for action figures about 4 days a week, in the mornings on my way home from work.I run into the same guys and we shoot the shit and talk about our latest finds. Its cool. But then the HW collectors come out of the sewers, chain smoking and wearing their varsity jackets and shooting dirty looks. Their a shifty lot, like a sewer rat or weasel.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:19 pm
You guys are lucky that they no longer make Starting Line-Up figures or you’d have to compete with those guys as well
January 23rd, 2010 at 12:39 am
These dudes are the WORST! Spawn guys were pretty rough back when too, but never as bad as these guys.
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:30 pm
These guys would try to slip me $20′s when I worked in a toy department and make comments like “there’s more if there’s a treasure hunt in there for me”.
January 24th, 2010 at 1:25 am
Wait, wait, wait, wait…
This is a common sub-culture that you guys encounter on a daily basis? Hot Wheel collectors? What about Matchbox collectors? Are they “cooler” guys? Are they also tools? Or do you just use “Hot Wheels” to mean any mini die-cast toy car?
January 24th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
idk some starwar collectors r dicks too. like the asshole who depleted my local target of a whole shopping cart full of lava reflection darth vaders. all i wanted was one for my son who actually opens and plays his action figures. and fuck the marvel legend comic book store owners who raid target and walmart too just to jack up the price in their own store.
September 12th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I realize this blog is old , however , I feel the need to offer some comfort for those of us who would really like nothing more than to call the parole officers of these pedo hot wheel collector’s and turn them in for being within 50 yards of a kid 7 days a week. I`ve just started collecting for my nephew , baseball cards , toys , action figures and the like. I`ve been to a few Toys R Us’ stores at opening and have noticed the absolute repugnant nature of these so-called “men” grasping for every little bit of their youth , and in the process, losing every bit of their humanity and worth. The unquanitifiable loss of dignity and self esteem that these human excrement experience on a daily basis can only be filled by the noise made by the smattering of naked die-cast car boxes being slammed together on shelves on which there is no real treasure. It is true that treasure is in the eye of those who hold it , but so is loss and pain. I myself have managed to luck around and find 18 treasure hunt vehicles , by accident of course , it is more likely the result of a life led with an insufferable case of insomnia than luck , but I digress.
I almost feel there guilt. Somehow ,I`ve managed to take this experience away from a kid , maybe one who’s looked for a magical treasure hunt vehicle his/hers entire adolescents , only to come to an understanding , grown-ups get everything good , I’ll be this way one day , and I`ll show them. Being a kid shouldn`t suck just because it did when we were kids , our parents were born of shitty music , acid trips , rampant STD’s and assassinations. Treasure hunts , and the like , are for kids , so starting tomorrow (9/13/2010) I`ll be showing up at Toys R Us every other day , right at opening to give away these cars to the first kid under the age of 10 who goes looking in the hot wheels section of the store. I will make every foul mouthed , ignorant , backwoods hot wheels collector that I see (there easy to spot) aware of what’s in my possession , then , when they ask , i’m gonna tell them i`m returning them to the store because I didn`t like them anymore. While they’re all huddled up at the counter waiting for me to do so , I will send my nephew thru the toy isles and hand them out for free , hopefully pissing “collector’s” off in the process and showing them how insignificant they already know they are , and how selfish there “hobby” really is. Good luck to you hot wheels guy , one day you may wake up and realize that theres always been one truth , lives are made rich by what we have to offer , not by what we can take.
the Rage