1968-1970 Mattel Hot Wheels Store Displays
GUEST: My parents owned variety stores, and these are store display cases that helped promote the Hot Wheels in the early years when they first came out.
APPRAISER: So these were actually in your parents' store on display?
GUEST: Yeah, in fact, if you look right here in the corner, there's the sticker. And this whole set was on sale for $14.95, never sold.
APPRAISER: Wow! That's wild. They even put their store display for sale in this because these weren't intended to be sold.
GUEST: That's correct. I'm old enough now that I started with Matchboxes, and then when Hot Wheels came out, they sort of trumped Matchboxes pretty quickly.
APPRAISER: Contrary to what Hot Wheels had done here, Matchbox was very plain Jane. They were making cars standard to what you would see on the road.
They were just production vehicles. They were being modeled; miniature scales of cars you would see every day.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: But boom-- 1968, Mattel comes up with Hot Wheels. Elliot Handler, husband of Ruth Handler, very famously known for Barbie, for girls' toys.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: And for boys, you had Hot Wheels, introduced by Ruth's husband, Elliot, in 1968. The whole Hot Wheels craze was based on Southern California car culture. Cars,
GUEST: yup.
APPRAISER: Hot rods, cool pinstriping, metallic colors.
GUEST: Fast.
APPRAISER: Yes, fast! Mattel saw this going on, and they said, "We have to capitalize on this," because what little boy is not going to want to play with a bunch of awesome hot rods?
GUEST: Exactly.
APPRAISER: And outside of the toys themselves being very collectible, store displays like you brought here, are extremely difficult to find. Miraculously,
every display here is intact, with all the cars as they would have been received from Mattel. So the three cases you have here, '68, 1969 and 1970. The 1970 and 1969 displays, they are relatively more common to the '68, but it's still very hard to find. For 1970, this was the one display you would have received. In 1969, that is one of three displays that would have potentially been sent to stores.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: That one you have there is the Daytona-themed race set display. There was also, like, this European Grand P-Prix kind of, like, Monaco-themed display.
GUEST: Yup.
APPRAISER: And then the third was, like, a valley and tunnels display. And going back to that color element of Hot Wheels and the design, it's so important to collectors today, because it's not like they just made one of every car. There is a whole list of so many different color variations...
GUEST: Variations.
APPRAISER: ...that have been introduced. Some a lot rarer than others, some very hard to find. Some exclusive to displays, which when we dissect your '68 "Sweet Sixteen" display, you have two of the best cars...
GUEST: Oh!
APPRAISER:...that you could possibly have. The first one is the Fastback Mustang in watermelon pink. We go two cars over and you have the '68 Camaro...
GUEST: Camaro.
APPRAISER:...in chocolate brown with a white interior.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: Now, these two cars are exceedingly rare just to have the little car, let alone sealed in the display.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: Condition wise, unfortunately, this plastic window in the front here has seen some better days. Looks like it took a hard hit, maybe falling off the shelf, if you remember. Or maybe being played with or moved around, yeah.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: But I love it, because look at the dust. To me, it's kind of like a miniature barn find, right?
GUEST: Sure.
APPRAISER: You gotta go find a '68 Camaro in a barn covered with dust, untouched survivor. I'm looking at this as a survivor of Hot Wheels store displays.
GUEST: I like that.
APPRAISER: To give a breakdown of values of what we have, the 1970 and the 1969 display, easily $5,000 to $10,000 each.
GUEST: (chuckles) I didn't expect that.
APPRAISER: Now, let's go to the '68. Condition, yes-- bad, right? Busted in the front, it does hurt it. But you do have that watermelon pink Mustang, and you have the chocolate brown Camaro in there. Even in this shape as it sits, '68 display is easily going to be $20,000 to $30,000 at auction.
GUEST: Wow... not bad for a 50-cent car, huh?
APPRAISER: (chuckling): That's a lot of money for some diecast cars!
GUEST: That's incredible. My-my parents took the long view by keeping these around.
$30,000 - $50,000 Auction
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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