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Matchbox cars (1 Viewer)

My wife is cleaning up the basement. She came across a box of old matchbox cars and determined that people do actually buy them, so she listed about 20 of them on ebay for $5-$10. About half of them sold. Most of them went for $5-$20. One of them sold for $40. And after a week of bidding, one sold for $228  :excited:  WTF? 

Would you pay $228 for this?
Oh yeah I'd pay $228 for that.

It's worth about $3600. Can't believe you had that all this time. Wow!

 
In all seriousness I have a bunch of these in my basement. Where did you guys list them?

 
Nice find. 
 

About 20 years ago I sold a ton of stuff for my parents. One of the best items was a snoopy astronaut with a box that my step father bought at a thrift store for  45 cents and it sold for $470! 
 

Thise kinda deals are hard these days. My step father says when he goes to the thrift store now people just load up their carts with potential items and then start checking the value of items on their phone. 
 

It’s kinda ruined the “art” of having a good eye for value. 

 
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Must be something about that model for it to go for so much - it's pretty banged up. I need to go check my own old set now.

 
My kids also have a full set of those Lightning McQueen matchbox cars. Those are put away for them to try and sell when they are old like me.

 
I'm not kidding when I say I only paid a little more than that for my first actual car.
We literally have a car in our driveway (Rav4 w/ 210k miles) that we were offered $500 for in a trade-in. It still runs great. And that matchbox car is worth half as much. Mind bottling.  :loco:

 
My son refers to Matchbox cars as "generic Hot Wheels"  :(  


There was an interesting A&E episode of The Toys that Built America a few months ago.  Matchbox was first and were a hit in England.  The originator was an engineer and wanted to design a toy car that looked like normal vehicles (e.g. police cars, firetrucks, sedans) and was told, IIRC, he can build and sell them if it would small enough to fit into a match box.

It was a hit in America too but the American counterpart didn't seem to be as successful and thought of the idea of Hot Wheels where the cars were more than just normal police cars, etc., he wanted hot rods and the kids loved them.  Then the outlandish designs came into play later.  Recalling the show from memory and may have missed something.  

As a kid, I loved both but would lean to Hot Wheels with the orange tracks to race them.  

 
My wife is cleaning up the basement. She came across a box of old matchbox cars and determined that people do actually buy them, so she listed about 20 of them on ebay for $5-$10. About half of them sold. Most of them went for $5-$20. One of them sold for $40. And after a week of bidding, one sold for $228  :excited:  WTF? 

Would you pay $228 for this?


that's awesome!

it's also a bit of a gut-punch for me ... :cry:  - I loved matchbox cars when I was younger. I even kept a lot of them in their original boxes.  Hot Wheels didn't come out until I was 10 - so Matchbox cars were king.  

I had 2 full Matchbox cases (these cases) with most of the cars/trucks in really good shape.  My mom saved them and a couple of years after I got married she gave them to me when I was visiting for Christmas.  Then a couple of days later we were seeing a buddy of mine in a not-so-great neighborhood and someone stole them out of the back of our car.  

I was crushed.  

 
Ebay. Not sure what makes one more valuable than another though? I assume the year? Like I said, about half didn't sell.


Just like cardboard (i.e. baseball cards), some are extremely rare and valuable while the majority aren't worth listing.   I'd recommend doing a bulk lot for the less valuable cars as you'll have better luck moving them.   I didn't know where to start with mine so I went to a local collectible shop and they helped me sort out the valuable ones.  I was clueless.  

I held onto my matchbox case however:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/394008694725?hash=item5bbcbf8fc5:g:K74AAOSw0xNiQ0uh

 
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My wife is cleaning up the basement. She came across a box of old matchbox cars and determined that people do actually buy them, so she listed about 20 of them on ebay for $5-$10. About half of them sold. Most of them went for $5-$20. One of them sold for $40. And after a week of bidding, one sold for $228  :excited:  WTF? 

Would you pay $228 for this?
Was that the limited edition version that changed color when the temperature changes ... like a shade of white in cold environments but that hot pink in normal warm air? 

They were collectables when my (now 30 yo) kid was playing with them.  I have a 5 gal bucket full of MatchBox cars.  Grandkids LOVE them too!  

 
Had a bunch of the Matchbox and Hot Wheels.  Most of them went to my nephews.  Who knows what they did with them.

The Matchbox Brown Sugar was always my favorite, but I think I took the decal off and painted it orange.

 
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My wife is cleaning up the basement. She came across a box of old matchbox cars and determined that people do actually buy them, so she listed about 20 of them on ebay for $5-$10. About half of them sold. Most of them went for $5-$20. One of them sold for $40. And after a week of bidding, one sold for $228  :excited:  WTF? 

Would you pay $228 for this?
hot wheels redline mercedes benz c-111

I had the red one with stars and stripes, my favorite when I was a kid.  I think the pink/magneta color is more rare so doubled the price of the regular ones.

 
Loved, don't remember exactly the spelling. Te Mini Haha.  Faster than any going down the small concrete sidewalk.

 
I must have had 100’s of these as a kid. Far and away my favorite toy. Wish I would kept them now.  Lol
You and me both brother. I see things selling for hundreds of dollars  that I had as a kid. What really kills me is some of my old albums like the Black Sabbath  first album  and Paranoid. My brother sold those along with all my comics while I was in the Army. It still aggravates me when I think about it.

 
My kids also have a full set of those Lightning McQueen matchbox cars. Those are put away for them to try and sell when they are old like me.
No idea what a full set is, but I just donated like 40 Cars matchbox cars to our church to sell for our youth group. Hopefully I didn’t just donate my daughter’s college fund.

 
You and me both brother. I see things selling for hundreds of dollars  that I had as a kid. What really kills me is some of my old albums like the Black Sabbath  first album  and Paranoid. My brother sold those along with all my comics while I was in the Army. It still aggravates me when I think about it.
Wait what, these are worth hundreds of dollars?  I'm positive I still have those. 

 
I had probably 300 Hot wheels and matchboxes.... My general lee was my prized possession.   I get into college and my cousins were not well off.  My mom asks if she can give my cars to my cousin.  Of course.... we never dreamed these things would be worth something......

 
I had probably 300 Hot wheels and matchboxes.... My general lee was my prized possession.   I get into college and my cousins were not well off.  My mom asks if she can give my cars to my cousin.  Of course.... we never dreamed these things would be worth something......
I mean yeah but you can pretty much say this for anything that was popular. It’s a ~25 year cycle. Products come out, people buy, love and use them. Fast forward 25 years later and those same kids now have some disposable income to buy cherished items from their youth. 

 
I mean yeah but you can pretty much say this for anything that was popular. It’s a ~25 year cycle. Products come out, people buy, love and use them. Fast forward 25 years later and those same kids now have some disposable income to buy cherished items from their youth. 
Yeah but I feel like it wasn't until "our generation" that this became "a thing".  Like I don't recall my dad looking for collectibles from the 50s when I was a kid :shrug:

 
My wife emailed the guy who bought it to find out more. He's a 57yo collector (obvi) and said it was valuable because it was a "redline" (which meant it was made in the first 10 years) and because of the paint color (spectraflame magenta or something?). He said they're pretty rare in that color in any condition (which is why he bought this one even though it was beat-up), but said if it would have been in mint condition, it would have been worth $800-$900.  Oh, and its apparently a Hot Wheels, not a Matchbox (I honestly didnt even know there was a difference ).  :grad:

 
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So wise ^ 

Just came in to post that no one will ever fall in love with a nitro burning funny car. 

 
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