A Beginners Guide

Starting your Hot Wheels collection

Hot Wheels collecting is a fun and rewarding hobby. The pursuit of those little toy die cast cars can be fun and casual or as gripping as you let it be. There are no rules, but you have to remember they are toys, designed for fun and amusement.

I must admit I will buy an extra car that I particularly like just to open and zip across my desk.

Most collectors will keep them in their packages as a way to maintain their value. Some of you might be like me and find great value in being able to hold them in your hand. Of course, keeping them in mint condition is a smart thing to do. You might be surprised at the value of some of those little cars.

Advice

If you are considering becoming a collector it might help to start off small. If you stick with certain guidelines it might help to not overwhelm your mind or your budget. Perhaps you will focus on a particular brand like "Ferrari", a model style like "muscle cars" or replicas of your favorite real world cars. Or maybe the fantasy hot rods with big engines sticking out of the hood are what grab your attention. If you like cars, there are probably a few cars on the pegs sure to spark your interest.

What You Need To Know

You have probably picked up a few Hot Wheels cars, or seen them in the stores and noticed some numbers or markings on the package. The packages are full of information for collectors. The packaging does change year to year, but the information outlined below should be on the packages somewhere. I will explain some things you should know:

A Typical Hot Wheels Package for 2007-2008

1) SERIES NUMBER: In this case we see the series is made up of 36 different models and this is number 6 of 36. Each series is made up of a certain number of cars. There may be 4, 5, 12 or more cars to collect in any series - each car will have its own number.

2) SERIES NAME:

The name of this series is - "2007 FIRST EDITIONS" There are several different series each year to collect. There will usually be a theme for each series. "First editions" means that these are new casting made and released for the first time this year. These models may return in future years as a part of some other series. The color band is yellow - each series will be uniquely color coded. In addition, there will be a larger number of cars released not being a part of any particular series. These are referred to as "Blue Lines" because the color coded band is blue. There is no theme to these cars. They are just models from previous years but usually revamped with different paint jobs.

3) MODEL NAME:

This is the name for this casting. The name will be the same even if this particular model has different variations of color, or markings - even if this model is reused in the future as a part of some other series.

4) COLLECTOR NUMBER: Every Hot Wheels car will have a unique collector number. The information in 2007 is located at the bottom right corner of the package. Here we see that this car is a 2007 (07) and there are 156 unique models released for 2007. Of the Entire year 2007, this car is number 6 of 156.