Hot Wheels

     I wanted to start out with something very simple. A piece that when I describe it and how I won it, I describe some basic auction terms and slang that you will hopefully get to know through reading this blog. The item is this:

     What you see is an original 1967 Hot Wheels Redline Era Starting Gate. When Mattel came out with Hot Wheels they were marketed to young boys to actually race their cars against each other. The starting block was a very simple way to facilitate that. You connected it to pieces of official Hot Wheels track, each kid put their cars in position, and then depressed that middle button to start the race. Rinse and repeat and see what kid had the fastest car. But wait, how do we know what car won the race? Kids are kids and they love winning. What is a fair way to tell which car won? Well....

     That is the Hot Wheels Redline Finish Line. You connected that to the end of the track. Whichever car hit that little stick first, the flag would fall in that direction giving us an undisputable winner.
   
     So how did I get a hold of these two pieces(piece is what everyone uses to describe any item)? I won them in a box lot of Hot Wheels Track. What is a box lot? A box lot is literally a cardboard box filled with items. You are bidding on the entire box and not the individual pieces inside. I was eyeing the box all night long and thinking to myself that it had to be good. Well the auctioneer decided to sell the box choice out with a table full of other items. What is a choice out? A choice out is when the auctioneer sells a group of separate items together, highest bid wins first choice and you can take as many items as you want at the high bid. The reason for the auctioneer to do this is to create competition for an item where there is none. Two people may want two different items but they do not want to risk losing the item they want, therefore they bid against each other.                

     Anyway, it seemed to me that no one wanted this box but me. The first few bidders that won choices looked at the box with disdain. So I patiently waited them out and ended up winning the box for five dollars.        

     The contents of the box were quite amazing, especially at the price I paid. Included was three starting gates, two finish lines, a redline sizzlers juice machine, an airbrake, parts and pieces of the tune-up tower, and tons of track pieces. I like to sell everything separately and I have actually already sold these items on my eBay account, my primary selling outlet. My username is teen_titan_fan. Here are the links to both items sold by me:

Starting Gate
Finish Line

     As you can see, the starting gate sold for $15.51 and the finish line for $10.50. That is $21.01 profit from ONLY TWO items out of the box. I would have to say I have made well over $50 from one $5 purchase. That is a ratio I would take any day.