Scott Plank
Sociology B3
Subcultures
10-14-99
Hot Wheels Collectors
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Since 1968, this company has produced over 2 billion cars, which, if
lined up end to end, would circle the world approximately 3.9 times.
No, it isn't General Motors, it's Mattel, an extremely successful toy company
located in California. The cars, which measure in at approximately
1/64 the size of the real thing, have generated quite a stir in the past
31 years. Because of the booming success of Hot Wheels, three main
groups have appeared in the collecting subculture. These three groups
are the scalper, the hoarder, and the true collector. The three groups
usually don't get along with each other very well. Every time a new
case of Hot Wheels is unloaded at one of the big discount stores such as
Wal-Mart or Toys 'R' Us, the scene can best be described as a "feeding
frenzy" between scalpers, hoarders, and collectors. Most people don't
seem to understand that "it's just toy."
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Each group has unique norms and values, but shares the same language.
Conversation between a scalper and collector is generally indistinguishable
from a conversation between two collectors. The following are terms
that are most often heard throughout a "day of collecting."
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The blister is the clear plastic that holds the car to the card.
Cherry picking refers to taking only a few select "hot" cars out of a case
or off of the pegs. The pegs refers to the section in the store where
the cars are displayed. Clean is the condition of the pegs after
all the new stuff is gone. First Editions (or FE's) are the new cars
that Mattel has released that year. There have been First Editions
since 1995. A Hoarder is someone who buys as many of the cars that
they assume will be popular, and hold onto them until they can be sold
at a profit. An HTF is a car that is Hard To Find. Limited
Editions (or LE's) refer to cars that have been produced in a LIMITED quantity.
A scalper is someone who buys a car (usually at the store price of a dollar
or less), and then turns around and sells it at an inflated price.
Treasure Hunt (or TH) started off as a "limited edition" available at local
stores for the regular shelf price, but since 1996, Mattel has not released
the quantity that was produced. TRU is the acronym for Toys 'R' Us.
A variation is a casting of a car that is different than the original version.
The Hunt refers to a day of going to the different stores looking for cars
to add to a collection. The meanings assigned to these words is pretty
much universal throughout the hobby with only slight variations.
.
In the subculture, material culture seems to make up an important part
of the hobby, which would be the cars themselves. In contrast, the
value assigned to a particular car makes up the nonmaterial culture of
collecting.
True collectors all agree that one of the most important values is
getting a fair or equal trade for cars. Equal trade meaning a Treasure
Hunt for a Treasure Hunt or a First Edition for First Edition. The
question of whether or not one car is worth more than the other does not
come up in a fair trade, the values aren't even considered. In other
words, money does not become an issue when trading cars with a fellow collector.
On the other hand, scalpers believe in getting the most bucks out of their
cars, which means the value assigned to a car is the main issue when dealing
with scalpers. Most scalpers assign their own "value" to a
car, which is generally higher than what most people will pay for.
For this reason, scalpers tend to prey on "newbies," people who are new
to the hobby and don't have a good idea what price the cars are going for.
.
Going along with the values, the norms of the collectors deal with
the number of cars that a collector will take at any given time.
Most true collectors set a limit of 10 cars or less per store, which still
generally leaves some of the newer stuff on the pegs for other collectors
to find. Hoarders obviously don't obey this rule. You will
usually find hoarders with a basket full of about 30 different cars with
two or more copies of each. True collectors view this as the breaking
of a more, those who violate this norm are considered non-collectors, and
ostracized from the true collectors. The Discount stores themselves
have a general norm for the price of cars. Most price Hot Wheels
at a dollar or less, though I've seen them priced at $1.99 at pharmacies
before.
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The Mattel/Hot Wheels flame logo is the most widely recognized symbol
in the hobby. It represents the entire Hot Wheels line of diecast
vehicles. The next obvious symbol is the car itself. A Hot
Wheel can have multiple meanings for different people. For the collector,
it represents the results of "the hunt," the spoils. Or it could
represent a sort of nostalgia that reminds them of the days back in the
late 60s and early 70s when they were kids and had Hot Wheels to play with
back then.
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From experience, collectors gain knowledge. Trivial knowledge,
such as being able to locate the toy (Hot Wheels) section of a store better
than any non-collector (or better than any kid for that matter).
Or more extensive knowledge, such as all of the variations of all of the
FE's made since 1995. Other knowledge, such as identification of
different wheel types, such as 5 spoke, 3 spoke, sawblade, and lace, compliment
the extensive variations knowledge. If one does not wish to fall
too far behind the scalper/hoarder, knowledge of when a store gets its
truck and when they normally stock the pegs comes in extremely handy.
As mentioned before, as soon as those new cars hit the shelves, the "feeding
frenzy" begins.
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The Hot Wheels subculture tends to be a rather culturally diverse hobby.
The scalper, hoarder, and collector are all very ethnocentric towards each
other. They believe that their views are the ones that are "right,"
and that everyone else is wrong. The collector has more moral issues
than either of the other two groups, and is the nicer of the two as well.
Hoarders tend to have a major greed problem, wanting as many cars as they
can get. Scalpers have an insatiable love for money produced by the
cars they sell, and generally care very little about the hobby of collecting.
When talking about cultural gatekeepers, the first one that comes to
mind is Mattel themselves, it's only logical that the toy company would
be considered one of the major cultural gatekeepers since they control
the production numbers on different castings. In actuality, Mattel
is a very poor gatekeeper, and could even not be considered a gatekeeper.
Since Mattel fails miserably in their job as gatekeepers, the responsibility
then falls onto the clerks and retailers of the world, but once again,
most of them just don't care. This leaves the job of gatekeeper wide
open for the scalpers of the world, who usually set the aftermarket value
of Hot Wheels.
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Up-to-date Pricing of Hot Wheels has been made easier through the Internet,
which leads to the major internationalization of the Hot Wheels community.
Through the Internet, collectors can chat, trade, buy, and post their collection
online for people to look at. In fact, it was through the Internet
that I was able to get most of the information presented here.
Obviously, to some people, it's not just a toy anymore, it's an obsession.
Greed and jealousy has corrupted the hobby so bad in recent years, that
it has caused some collectors to give it up and sell their collections.
Mattel has slowly started to lose control of the Hot Wheels product since
it became a huge collectors market, mostly because of scalpers and hoarders.
The hobby has survived for over 30 years, though, and hopefully, with some
luck, it will last another 30 more.
.
Bibliography
Interview with Phaser, staff member, CBs Diecast Museum, 1999,
http://www.infohouse.com/cbs/1/contents.htm
Interview with trish, web master, CBs Diecast Museum, 1999,
http://www.infohouse.com/cbs/1/contents.htm
"Collectors Dictionary," CBs Diecast Museum, 1999,
http://www.infohouse.com/cbs/3/dictionary.htm