The Great Super Treasure Hunt Experiment of 2014: A tip from a friend...

My mini-hot streak continues.  The last 3-4 weeks have helped my fill in some spots on my quest to find all 15 Super Treasure Hunts in the store, in the middle of the day.  Three weeks ago I came across the Super Twin Mill, last week the Chevy Nova Wagon, and this week the '69 Corvette.

The '69 Corvette was found yesterday.  In fact, I found two at the same store.  This wasn't as unique as my find last week at Alco in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't a standard Walmart find either.

This came after a tip from a fellow collector.  A friend in Arizona, known on HWC as blackb13, posted on a forum I frequent that he had found the '69 Camaro Super at Dollar Tree.  That was a bit of a surprise, as Dollar Tree hasn't carried Hot Wheels for at least a couple of years.  But it appears they have changed their minds, as from what we have heard, all Dollar Trees are getting either Batch K or M in droves.

After Jason mentioned his find, I figured I would stop by the two Dollar Trees in the town I was visiting on business.  The first did have Hot Wheels, but it appeared they had been there for a few days.  The second Dollar Tree was bursting at the pegs.  Upon walking up I could see two Homers and a regular TH right up front.  It was definitely promising.

Peg after peg I went through, knocking my fair share on the ground (which I always put back, I promise), but only a few false hopes occurred when I thought I saw the Vette but it ended up being the mainline.  Ultimately I walked away leaving quite a few Homers and reg TH's.  Either someone just beat me to the pegs or the cases at that store were void of Supers.

That was Tuesday.  Wednesday I drove to another area for meetings, and had a few minutes to kill, so I decided to visit the one Dollar Tree in town.  I found the pegs were a lot like the previous Dollar Tree, bursting on every peg, with Homers all around.  So once again there was promise.

I was coming up empty after a lot of searching, and was starting to think that I just missed out when the third row from the bottom yielded a purple treat:

A few pics and it was in my hands.  I was more than happy to have the one Super, and was ready to leave when I decided to keep looking.  Sure enough, on the very last peg I checked, hanging right at the bottom:

Finding a second is nearly as fun as finding the first, but I rarely find two in the same store.  That was fun.

A lot of you have commented that I seem to find a lot of these.  Of course I have had my share of luck.  But it is not as crazy as you think.  That is why we are calling it an experiment to see if I can find them all without pallet-raiding overnight or door-warming every morning.  Most collectors that do that find Supers, find more than one.  I have happily found one here and one there, mostly by hitting rural stores, visiting certain Walmarts with toy managers that like to peg Hot Wheels randomly during the day, or randomly stopping by stores that are not on most collector's routes.

You might notice that I usually find Supers well after they have been released in dump bins at Walmart.  That seems to be the key.  Don't fret when the batches first hit, just be patient and see what comes later.  For example, the N case dump bins are hitting Walmarts around here, and of course when I found one the Supers were long gone.  I was happy to walk away with the Zamac Hakosuka Skyline and green Kenmeri.  Finding the Impala Super TH will come later.  If I am lucky.

Alright, the tally so far:

Chevrolet SS - Found at a rural Walmart at 11:30 am
Sand Blaster - Found at a nearby Walmart around 4:30 pm
Camaro Special Edition - Found at neighboring town Walmart around 3 pm
'71 Mustang Mach 1 - Found on a Saturday afternoon grocery run at Harmon's Market (I found two)
'07 Mustang - no luck
'55 Chevy Bel Air Gasser - no luck
'70 Chevelle SS - Found at two different Walmarts on the same day (one at 10 am, one at 5 pm)
Twin Mill - Found at a rural Walmart at about 3:45 pm
'64 Chevy Nova Wagon - Found at 5 pm at a rural Alco
'83 Silverado - Found at Target at 1 pm
'76 Greenwood Corvette - no luck
'69 Corvette - Found 2 at Dollar Tree around 11:30 am

With the Impala just hitting, I am only missing three.  Like I have said before, finding the Gasser and '07 Mustang seems highly unlikely, but I am holding out hope I can find the Greenwood. 

We shall see...

The Great Super Treasure Hunt Experiment of 2014: My most rural find yet...

There has been a Hot Wheels Wagon Super that has been getting just a bit of hype lately, well before its release.  Honestly we don't know if we have seen a higher amount of anticipation about a Super TH than what the Datsun 510 Wagon Super is getting.

Lost in all that, however, is the too-cool fact that there are two (TWO!!) Wagon Super Treasure Hunts in the 2014 line.  That fact alone makes the 2014 lineup of Supers one of the best yet.  Off-hand, we can think of three wagon Supers previous (Morris Wagon, Chevy Delivery, and Chevelle), so two this year is awesome.

And while we all watch the prices of the Datsun Wagon fly high, and as we watch the frenzy that will be Kdays in September, let us all pause and give some love to the other wagon, the '64 Chevy Nova Station Wagon.  There have been a lot of good-looking Supers this year, and this is surely one of them.  Yes, flames are kind of the universal symbol of Hot Wheels over-decorating their models, but there is a way to do it right, and this is surely a great example.  The brown works so well, and the flames are simple.  Definitely the less-is-more approach to flames.  And the perfect choice for wheels is the steelies.

We have an example here for our Lamley features, but the Nova Wagon was definitely a Super I wanted to find on the pegs, especially as part of my attempt to find all 15 Super TH's on the pegs during random daytime visits to stores.  The batch came and went at Walmarts and Targets, so smaller stores would be the best place to find one.

And it finally happened.

For me, while finding a Super is always thrilling, finding one at an unlikely location is even better.  I have found them at grocery stores, rural Walmarts, a gas station, and even by my neighbor on her first visit to the pegs (imagine when she texted me a photo of the Toyota 2000GT Super asking if that was the model I was looking for).

Today's story may be the best location-wise, because I found it in the most rural of rural areas.  I have mentioned several times that my work takes me all over a huge chunk of the state of Utah, from essentially Salt Lake south.  All the way to the southwest corner in St George, just north of Las Vegas, as well as southeast to Moab and the Four Corners.  This Super find happened in the town of Blanding, Utah.  You can look it up.  It is 70 miles south of Moab, and north of the Four Corners area.  It is a small town.  And like a lot of small towns, it has an Alco:

I don't know too much about Alco stores, but they seem to be small general stores, and only in small towns.  Here is the view from the parking lot:

I have been to this Alco in my travels before, because they do have a small toy section, and I have always wanted to find a Super at a store like this.  A collector I have run into near my home mentioned he had found a Super at this exact store several months ago while he was traveling, so I have held out hope.

At about 5 pm I had just finished a meeting with a client when I hopped in the car to start the 4-hour drive home.  On a whim, I decided to give the Alco a quick look, considering I am not down this way that often.  So a quick stop I made.

I arrived at the pegs, and they looked well picked-over (I took this photo after my find, but you get a sense of what the pegs looked like):

The cards were sporadically placed, suggesting employees were spreading the models out as more models were purchased.  The Snoopy suggested that while these pegs had been passed through many times, maybe no collector in the know had gotten to them.  So I perused.

Only a few pegs had more than 2-3 models on them, including that lower one in the middle.  From the left I noticed the rear model was a Nova Wagon that seemed a darker shade of brown, and a walk around to the right verified my hunch:

Yep, those are flames on that hood.

Finally, the Super I have really been hoping to find, and in a location I have really wanted to have some success.  It didn't make this exhaustive one-day trip worth it, but it did make it more tolerable.

My makeshift Alco checkout counter photo studio:

Isn't she pretty?  I am very happy to have this one.

So, the update on my Super TH attempt:

Chevrolet SS - Found at a rural Walmart at 11:30 am
Sand Blaster - Found at a nearby Walmart around 4:30 pm
Camaro Special Edition - Found at neighboring town Walmart around 3 pm
'71 Mustang Mach 1 - Found on a Saturday afternoon grocery run at Harmon's Market (I found two)
'07 Mustang - no luck
'55 Chevy Bel Air Gasser - no luck
'70 Chevelle SS - Found at two different Walmarts on the same day (one at 10 am, one at 5 pm)
Twin Mill - Found at a rural Walmart at about 3:45 pm
'64 Chevy Nova Wagon - Found at 5 pm at a rural Alco
'83 Silverado - Found at Target at 1 pm
'76 Greenwood Corvette - no luck
'69 Corvette - no luck

8 out of 12.  Not too bad, considering there has been no pallet raiding for me.  I have accepted the fact that the '07 Mustang and '55 Gasser are probably not going to happen, but you never know.  Plus there should be plenty of chances to find the last two Corvettes, and we will see if I have any luck.  And the Impala is around the corner, with the Harley Davidson and Datsun Wagon looming.  

Back to the hunt...

The Great Super Treasure Hunt Experiment of 2014: An old batch at a rural Walmart...

The Hot Wheels year is getting closer and closer to the end.  Batch N is in hobby stores, Batch P is on its way, and Q is waiting in the wings for its August/September release.

That means that my attempt to find all 15 Super Treasure Hunts in the store in the middle of the day just might turn up short.  I have been unlucky on a handful of batches, and the further away from previous batches we get, the more unlikely it is that I will ever see new cases.

But even if I fall short, I must keep going, and I had a small victory yesterday.

I had one of my rural days at work yesterday, where I wander through an array of small towns visiting clients in the center of the state.  At about 3:45 in the afternoon I found myself near a small Walmart that serves several small towns on a long stretch through a mountain valley.  I try to stop by when I can, as I have had some luck in the past.  If I remember correctly, I have found four Supers at this store during my travels: the Ferrari 599XX, Chevelle Wagon, Corvette ZR1, and Buick Riviera.  This store rarely has dump bins, so all have been found hanging on the pegs, and all in the middle of the day.

I haven't had much luck there lately, as the last Super I found was last year's Riviera.  When I got to the pegs, they were not too full, but the cards looked crisp, and I noticed a few Star Trek Enterprises hanging on the shelf.  The third peg I checked also yielded an x-racer Chevelle Regular Hunt, so it seemed worth checking all the pegs.

Collectors in the rural towns tend to leave Regular Hunts behind, so finding the Regs doesn't mean a Super could be nearby.  But it does mean it is worth looking.  On about the third row, I passed by a Twin Mill that was 4-5 cards back.  I went right past it, but decided to return, as it did seem a little darker than the green I had seen on the Twin Mill before.  I am glad I returned:

Not the most exciting Super to find, but it is definitely one of the 15 I have been looking for.

I happily grabbed that, plus an extra Morris Mini in red, and left everything else there, including those two to the right of the Super:

Speaking of leaving behind, we have always said that the Regular T-hunts are not for collectors, but for kids, and we have implored our fellow collectors to leave the Regulars behind unless they are truly a fan of the casting.  The Stockar is not a favorite, so it remained behind.  As did all of these during my rural swing yesterday:

Another small-town Walmart

Small town Kmart

Another small town Kmart

It was hard to leave the Subarus behind, but I already have one loose and one carded, and that is good enough for me.  The Homers stay behind too.

But the Supers, yeah, they will always come home with me.  So where do I stand now, with only three Supers yet to hit stores?

Chevrolet SS - Found at a rural Walmart at 11:30 am

Sand Blaster - Found at a nearby Walmart around 4:30 pm

Camaro Special Edition - Found at neighboring town Walmart around 3 pm

'71 Mustang Mach 1 - Found on a Saturday afternoon grocery run at Harmon's Market (I found two)

'07 Mustang - no luck

'55 Chevy Bel Air Gasser - no luck

'70 Chevelle SS - Found at two different Walmarts on the same day (one at 10 am, one at 5 pm)

Twin Mill - Found at a rural Walmart at about 3:45 pm

'64 Chevy Nova Wagon - no luck

'83 Silverado - Found at Target at 1 pm

'76 Greenwood Corvette - no luck

'69 Corvette - no luck

I still hold out hope that some older batches could produce the Nova Wagon, Greenwood Corvette, and '69 Vette, but I am guessing I am out of luck on the '07 Mustang and Gasser.  But I will keep looking...

The Great Super Treasure Hunt Experiment of 2014: My first gas station find, and mid-afternoon at Target...

The great experiment continues.  My attempt to find all 15 Super Treasure Hunts in stores during the middle of the day on random visits to stores hasn't gone completely as desired, but the occasional find has made it pretty fun.

The count to date:

Chevrolet SS - Found at a rural Walmart at 11:30 am

Sand Blaster - Found at a nearby Walmart around 4:30 pm

Camaro Special Edition - Found at neighboring town Walmart around 3 pm

'71 Mustang Mach 1 - Found on a Saturday afternoon grocery run at Harmon's Market (I found two)

'07 Mustang - no luck

'55 Chevy Bel Air Gasser - no luck

'70 Chevelle SS - Found at two different Walmarts on the same day (one at 10 am, one at 5 pm)

Twin Mill - no luck

'64 Chevy Nova Wagon - no luck

'83 Silverado - we will get to that

'76 Greenwood Corvette - not out in my area yet

6 out of 10 ain't bad, especially considering all were found in the middle of the day.

And we have an update.  I have had a surprising couple of days while traveling for business, and it started with a first.  My first gas station find.  

I spent Tuesday evening driving south from Salt Lake City to St. George, Utah, and I inevitably had to stop for gas.  That meant hitting the Flying J in Beaver, Utah.  While pumping gas, I went into the convenience store for a bottle of water.  While wandering, I saw two small bins with a total of about 50 Hot Wheels, and I of course had a look.

The first thing I noticed, they were crazy expensive for the US - $2.99.  I told myself while starting to look that I would only purchase one if it were a cool error or a Super.  I saw a few models I liked, but left.  Then I saw a Mazda RX-7 Treasure Hunt.  It is a Hunt I would normally pick up, but $2.99 was a deterrent.  That is until I saw one of the last cars in the second bin:

Yep, that is the '07 Mustang Super from 2013.  The fourth time I have found that model.  Glad it is one I really like.  

I said this was my first gas station find.  It is also the oldest Super I have ever found.  It was released almost a year ago.  Certainly it hasn't sat in that bin that long, but it is interesting to wonder how long it has been there.  Considering the $2.99 price, maybe awhile.  

I bit the bullet and went with these:

So that was fun enough, finding an old Super in such an odd location.  But it did nothing to help my quest in 2014.  But I made some progress yesterday.

The theme for my finds this week has been water.  I went into the Flying J for a bottle on Tuesday, leaving with a Super, and the same happened at Target in St. George on Wednesday afternoon.  Of course any visit to Target means a visit to the pegs, and while those pegs weren't full, there were some interesting models.

First, I saw the Porsche 993 in white, meaning the K case was there.  Then the black Hakosuka Skyline.  Then the Ford Fiesta Treasure Hunt.  Our friends at DiecastTVChannel were looking for one, so I could send them this one as part of a trade.  Regular Hunts get left all the time, but there is always the chance it could mean this was a pegged case that hadn't been looked at yet.   Midway down, behind a couple of cars, there is was:

It seems I find Supers well after they were released, after collectors have moved onto the next one, so this we surely unexpected.  I was happy to take it home.

Not a bad two-day haul:

Think I can keep the streak alive?

The Great Super Treasure Hunt Experiment of 2014: Two stores, two Supers...

The experiment to see if I can find all 15 2014 Supers by only visiting stores during normal daytime hours hasn't been going so well.

I got off to a good start by finding the Opala SS, Sandblaster, Camaro Special Edition, and '71 Mustang.  I haven't been so lucky since, until yesterday.

I had a minute to spare in the morning on my way to a meeting, so I stopped off at a nearby Walmart just before 9am.  The pegs were a bit disheveled, as someone had clearly been through them a little earlier.  I went looking for anything interesting, and at first went right by this:

I went back after a minute thinking it might be the MC5 vari, and was more than surprised to see the Summit logo on the roof:

There were no regular Hunts, so my guess is this one was missed.  I have to think that previous visitors had their mind on the H and J Supers, and the Chevelle is VERY easy to miss.  If you aren't looking for it, there is a good chance you would pass it off as the standard version.  You practically miss it with the two versions sitting right next to each other:

Nonetheless, I was very happy to take it with me.

Fast forward to the afternoon.  I just finished an appointment around 4 pm, and decided I had a minute to hit a nearby Walmart, hoping to find the Zamac J cases.  Once again, picked over pegs, but this was waiting on the top left-hand corner:

Who woulda thunk?  My second Chevelle, only this time an afternoon find.

Not 15 seconds later another collector arrived, roughly looking through the pegs.  I asked what he was looking for, and he said Hunts only, and told me they were impossible to find, and not to worry about looking.  I might have played a little dumb, and asked him what to look for.  He said Hot Wheels does 250 Supers a year, one for each model, and that I would never find one.  I finally told him it was 15, one for each batch, but I didn't mention the one in my hand.  He was nice enough and went on his merry way.  Another collector arrived, gave the pegs a quick gander, and left just as quickly.  Based on that frequency I witnessed in only a couple of minutes, I have to think this Chevelle went unnoticed by earlier visitors as well.

Plus, I don't think standard collectors know what to make of the bearded guy wearing a bow tie and orange-souled wingtips looking through the pegs.  The looks are always a little amusing.

A lucky day to say the least, but I am still a bit behind in my quest to find all 15 on the pegs.  I have to hope that, like this Chevelle batch, older batches will hit some stores and will find the '07 Mustang, Chevy Gasser, and Twin Mill.  And maybe the J cases will arrive at a nearby Walmart one of these days and I can get lucky and find the Nova Wagon.  Finding all 15 on the pegs in 2014 is starting to look a little bleak...

For now, I will just enjoy these two finds:

The Great Super Treasure Hunt Experiment of 2014: 4 for 4* (thanks to a beet salad)...

Time to update my 2014 Super Treasure Hunt Experiment.

To refresh your memory, I am trying to see how many of the 15 Super TH's of 2014 I can find on the pegs.  And by pegs, I mean on the pegs, in a sidekick, in a dump bin, or a Kmart Kdays case.  Basically in store and not on a pallet.  And without doorwarming or overnight raiding.  

Can I walk into a store in the middle of the day and leave with a Super TH?

Well, I am 4 for 4*.  

And yes, that is an asterisk.  Why, because I am technically 4 for 6.  With the Gasser earlier this month, 6 Super TH's have been released in 2014.  I have now found the first four, in order.  That makes 4 for the first 4, with the '07 Mustang and '55 Gasser still to find.  And who knows if I will.

Here is how my latest find went down, as described on HWC:

4. 1971 Mustang Mach 1

Sunday means roasted beet salad, so we were off to our favorite grocery store to prepare.

We bypass several other stores to get to this one, but their produce and meats are second to none, they try to stay as local as they can, and their prepared foods are fantastic. But I have never gone there for Hot Wheels. From what I have seen they stock about a half-case of Hot Wheels in a small toy section once a year around Christmas.

So I was a bit shocked to see a four-sided peg tree in the seasonal aisle full of Matchbox and Hot Wheels. I decided to check, and quickly came across a Speedbox Regular TH. I left it, but wondered if that was a sign that these may not have been raided. There were some models that had fallen to the ground, but that could have been a kid's doing.

Sure enough, about halfway through one of the sides, something caught my eye:

Let me look closer:

The '71 Mustang Super.  My fourth Super for 2014.

So of course I would keep looking. And there, at the bottom of the next side, hanging above some models that had fallen to the ground:

A little closer:

A second Mustang Super. My first multiple Super find of 2014, and at 5pm on a Saturday to boot. Harmon's may not stock again for another year, but how cool was it that my favorite grocery store gave me a little surprise?

After three Walmart finds in 2014, it is nice to find something in an upscale grocery store.

So add the Mach 1 to these three:

1. Chevy Opala SS:

Found in October at a rural Walmart in a sidekick at about 11:30 am. This town has a crazy collector scene, as told to me by the Kmart toy manager, who said she dreads Kmart Days because of the large number of collectors, and how they behave. This was the first time I have encountered a Super in this town, and I think it was because the sidekick was placed in an odd place in the toy section. It was on an endcap, but was placed way too high. The bottom row of the sidekick was at my eye-level, and I am six-feet-tall. I was able to reach up to the second row from the top, and pulled the Opala (photo taken in my car afterwards):

2. Sandblaster:

Found in November at a Walmart close to my house. I have had success at this store before (3 previous Supers, plus the Fast & Furious Mustang), mainly because the toy manager stocks the Hot Wheels at different times during the day. His night staff is instructed to keep the Hot Wheels off the floor overnight, and he stocks them the next day. I found the Sandblaster on some endcap pegs at about 5 pm. I saw the manager soon after and he told me he had pegged one case about 3 hours before, so that is as long as it hung:

How I found it:

Moved to the front of the pegs:

3. 2013 Hot Wheels Chevy Camaro Special Edition:

Found mid-December at a Walmart in a suburb about 30 minutes from my house, at about 3 pm. This Walmart sits right in the middle of typical urban sprawl, which means a lot of young families, and a very busy store and toy section. Especially during the holidays, the staff is constantly roaming the toy section cleaning up and keeping the pegs full. There was a dump bin around the corner overflowing with several batches, but it appeared well-picked-over. It is clear, based on the look of the pegs, that someone had recently filled some gaps with all or part of a case, and the Camaro was right out in front:

How I found it:

And placed next to the Fangster Regular TH I left behind:

What do you think, can I go 15 for 15?

We would love to see your mid-day luck.  Please be sure to share with us on Facebook, Twitter, or on Instagram (hashtag #lamleyfinds).