Archive for the 'Exclusives' Category
— September 15, 2008
Get ready for the first Cars Collector Day 2008 at K-Mart! What is Cars Collector Day you ask? Well, the whole point of this post is to tell you.
On Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 11:00 AM, K-Mart is hosting a Cars Collector Day. This will be your first chance to buy 7 Cars, Edwin Kranks, Fred (re-scaled, no stickers), Shiny Wax, Sputter Stop, Transberry Juice, View Zeen and SpareMint. These are not exclusives and they’ll be available elsewhere after.
Over 2,300 stores are participating. Take 5 a Day has posted a list of stores here. You may want to call first and check the time in case it varies. Here is a picture of the flyer.
— September 14, 2008
It’s been over a month since my last post. Sorry about that, but I sold one house, bought a new house and moved. So I’ve been busy lately. As a result, this may be old news for many of you, but I still thought it deserved a post. In fact, these are already shipping for collectors who got in early.
Toys R Us is running a promotion where if you buy 5 Cars, they will send you a Sidewall Shine Piston Cup Racer for free. Here is the site with all the details.
Here’s how it works. You buy 5 Cars at a participating Toys R Us, from the approved list of UPC’s, between August 18th, 2008 to September 30th, 2008. Mail in the original receipt along with the 5 cardbacks from the 5 Cars you bought, plus $5 for shipping and handling. (They really want the UPC so make sure to send that in as well, not just the cardback.) Do this for each Car you order, but there is a purchase limit of 10 per household, so it looks like you can order only 2 Cars. All requests must be postmarked between October 15th and October 31st, and allow 8 to 12 weeks for delivery.
You recieve a Sidewall Shine Piston Cup Racer in its own display case.
Since I already have the Motor Speedway of the South, I didn’t need a Sidewall Shine, so I am not participating. But I’m still not happy with this promotion. If you can find 5 Cars on the list that you don’t already own, then this promotion is great for you, congratulations. But if you’re like me and you already have all the Cars on the list, other than the ones that are scarce and good luck finding those when you buy your 5, then you have to buy 5 Cars that you already have. So the point of this promotion is to help clear out Toys R Us inventory of Cars. All the Toys R Us stores near me have not stocked any new Cars in a long time, so most of the Cars they have are pegwarmers like Ramone and McQueen.
Now let’s talk about what it will cost you for Sidewall Shine. Let’s say a Car costs $3.49 (the price at Target). If you multiply that times 5, you get $17.45. Add in $5 shipping and handling, and that’s $22.45. If you buy more than one, then double that.
So it’s up to you wether this is worth it or not. If you’re okay with buying 5 Cars that you already own to get an exclusive one, then great. My advice would be to wait for a sale to save money. Of course, you can always take your chances with Sidewall Shine on eBay. Although you may end up paying more, you won’t get stuck with 5 Cars you already own.
— July 13, 2008
Lightning Storm McQueen has been previously announced as being a San Diego Comic Con exclusive. Although, Comic Con is still 2 weeks away, Lightning Storm McQueen is already fetching high prices online. Checking eBay, you can see that prices are ranging from $37.99 to $386.95.
Whether or not it’s worth it to you, depends on a few things. LS McQueen costs $15 and is limited to 5,000. Going to Comic Con can cost quite a bit when you factor in tickets, travel cost, hotel, food and other expenses. If you know someone that is going, you can ask them to pick one up for you, but seeing as they are footing the bill you may want to give them more than cost to help with their expenses.
You have one other option for getting it directly. Mattel is debuting a Collector’s Club at San Diego Comic Con, and they announced that they will be putting a few exclusives up for sale online the Monday after Comic Con. This will be a crap shoot at best, as there will not be many and Mattel has said they will not be limiting any sales online.
Failing that your only other option for getting this exclusive is on the secondary market. However, my advice will be to wait until after Comic Con when the supply will be much bigger than it is right now. Hopefully, the price will come back down or eventually stabilize, but there are no guarantees.
— June 23, 2008
Just a quick update for those of you out there who snagged the exclusive Motor Speedway of the South set. Mattel is mailing out numbered stickers to those who bought the set. Here is a quote from an administrator on Hotwheelscollectors.com.
As many of you know, the sales article for the Pixar Cars Speedway of the South set indicated that the sets would be individually numbered up to 1000. This was an error in the article, as the sets were never intended to be numbered.
However, to avoid any disappointment with our customers, we will be mailing numbered stickers to all who purchased the set, with instructions on where to apply the sticker.
Stickers will be mailed randomly - the same way they would have been had they already been applied to the sets. This is in accordance with the way all numbered RLC items are shipped. Time of order does not dictate what number a customer receives.
We apologize for the error in the article and thank you for your patience.
So, they didn’t intend for them to be numbered, but told us that they would be. And now to make up for their error, they are sending out numbered stickers. Score! Seriously, congrats to Mattel for fixing this. Has anybody gotten one of these yet?
— May 28, 2008
Last month, Mattel told us about the Lightningstorm McQueen San Diego Comic Con exclusive. This month, Mattel has given us a few more details about this exclusive, including price and edition size. The price is $15, and that includes the black base, clear plastic stand and clear plastic cover (shown at left). The edition size for the exclusive Lightningstorm McQueen has been set at 5,000.
I’m not super happy that Mattel is giving us a convention exclusive for the Cars line to go along with all the other convention exclusives, although I’m not that surprised. However, $15 is great price for everything that is included. And 5,000 isn’t that limited for a convention exclusive. The problem is that scalpers go to these shows to buy up the exclusives, artificially limiting supply and then driving up the prices online. Time will tell though how hard these will be to come by and how expensive they will be once they reach the secondary market.
Incidentally, I am not able to go. So if there are any kind souls out there planning on attending San Diego Comic Con who are benevolent and would like to pick up a Lightningstorm McQueen for yours truly, I would be extremely appreciative and forever grateful to you. Hey, it never hurts to ask.
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