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My Super Treasure Hunt Drought is over.

By

jtl46

Hey it’s my blog, so I can celebrate here if I want to.  I just found my first 2018 Super Treasure Hunt in the wild.  Hooray for me.

I have always argued that the best thing about Supers is finding them, randomly.  Many love the brickseek-watching, overnight-raiding, early door warming no-holds-barred pursuit of Supers, and more power to them.  Those folks aren’t all “scalpers” – the most overused term in our hobby – just REALLY into Supers.  Others do what they shouldn’t, buying stolen Supers from the factory, and either keeping them or selling/raffling them here.  It’s a post for another time, but before you destroy Mattel for “letting it happen”, which I assure you they don’t, turn your frustration to those raffling the stolen Supers here in the US.  Following them or, even worse, buying from them only keeps the demand for stolen Supers high, and that means no matter what protocols Mattel institutes, certain folks will find a way to get the stolen models out of the factory.  No demand, no stolen Supers.  But I digress.

I like showcasing the Supers here and on the Channel, but ultimately what I love most about them is the rush I get from randomly walking into a store and finding one hanging on the pegs or buried in a dump bin pile.  It means that every find is a story.  If they were too easy to find, or if I made it my life’s work to find them, it wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable.

So that means droughts are great.  They add to the narrative.  And boy have I had a drought.  My last find was February, and it was the final Super of 2017.  Nothing since, and not one 2018 find.  I pulled a couple in my unboxing videos, and that was cool, but nothing like finding them on the pegs.

I have accounted for every Super find, and each has a story.  And among those, the random rural find in a random store with only a couple of pegs reserved for Hot Wheels are always the best.  And that is how I ended my drought yesterday.  First of 2018.

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jtl46

24 responses to “My Super Treasure Hunt Drought is over.”

  1. wilbert JOHNSON Avatar
    wilbert JOHNSON

    congrads!!!!!

    Reply
  2. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    And of all Supers…..your favorite for 2018. Very jealous. I’ve been in a couple of stores which had a ton of the regular and the Super never popped up. Only Super I’ve found this year is the King Kuda. May be my least favorite. Oh well. It was still fun finding it and yeah I have a story to go with it. Cheers and Congrats!

    Reply
  3. Michael Varilla Avatar
    Michael Varilla

    Seems like you have my luck with cards, I think 99 % of the Supers I have ever found always have a banged up corner or two. I’m convinced it has something to do with the real riders.

    Reply
  4. CodyJ Avatar
    CodyJ

    Gongrats man! My big finds were 2 supers in the same bin together a couple years ago. Both were 16-Angles and a few weeks before the same store had the 70 Superbird which I got too. Never again. LOL before that it was a regular T-hunt in 2008. I plan to get the Gold Vette Grand Sport though. Probably will have to find that at a meet or online.

    Reply
  5. 17A Avatar
    17A

    I’m jealous, I didn’t even found the base version of the RS6, the car I wanted the most for 2018.Still, congrats

    Reply
    1. KindaMeerkat Avatar
      KindaMeerkat

      The base rs6 was my goal too. I found one at the second last day of 2018.

      Reply
  6. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    Man, I struggled to find the REGULAR version of this car, let alone the super! Nice find though. My most memorable Super find was several years ago when I found THREE of the Impala low-rider Supers in a (presumably quite fresh) dump bin. Couldn’t believe my luck when I spotted the first, was in disbelief with the second, and it just got surreal when I dug out the third. Don’t remember my last Super find, but it has been a while…might’ve been the Datsun 620.

    Reply
  7. Brian Avatar
    Brian

    Nice find! That was ironically my only find this year too…surprisingly at a Sears.

    Reply
  8. Connor McCollum Avatar
    Connor McCollum

    Congrats! That’s the best Super this year and I still haven’t found it to this day. I’m hoping in the next couple of months a Dollar Tree or some random store will get this case and I can score this Super despite being out for so long. But hey, I’m not complaining too much because I did manage to find the Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 Super last Monday at Target in those new red, four-sided shippers full of B case cars and track sets. What makes it better is that I scored the super at three o’clock in the afternoon! Talk about luck!

    Reply
  9. Darkjedilair Avatar
    Darkjedilair

    Great find. I found none last year but have 6 this year. Found the only Boneshaker at the Target collector event. Went into a CVS for my wife and one of two cars on the pegs was the Borla Mustang. Last year’s Fairlady Z, the King Kuda, Audi and Escort were all found at two of the Ingles grocery stores in my area. The Target was the only Hot Wheels specific stop.

    Reply
  10. Land Ark Avatar
    Land Ark

    I too just ended a Super drought. The last one I found was a Carbonic at a Wegman’s near me in late 2016.

    I found the R34 like Connor at a Target. I was out of town for work and pulled off the highway to go to a WalMart and saw Target out of the corner of my eye and jumped over there. It was 5:30pm and they had clearly just recently pegged the case.

    Reply
  11. ray Avatar
    ray

    You may have found more if they had not been sold on the internet from the Factory Workers.

    Reply
  12. Brad Avatar
    Brad

    Congrats on ending the drought! I once had one that lasted over 600 days, and the super that I found on the pegs (’67 Camaro) was quite the find. I agree with the thrill of the random find, way better than walking in a store expecting to find cases because an online inventory system told you they would be there.

    Reply
  13. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    I found the new Nissan a couple days ago in an obviously fresh four sided shipper at Target, like Conner did, at 4:30 after work! Was really thrilled, as that store is frequented daily by a couple of retirees I’ve met there. I can go years without finding a Super TH. Cool Audi RS6 find for you, John.

    Reply
  14. aubrey Avatar
    aubrey

    I remember watching you pull the Audi wagon Super out of the international case… but finding one in the wild must have been a lot of fun! I’ve only been “collecting” for a few years (but have bought the random Hot Wheels over the years), and have found a few Treasure Hunts (incl 2 Ford Transit Connect pizza vans). I only recently found my very first Super (the white GReddy Honda Civic, at a Target), and the other day found the green Skyline R34 SUPER, also in the four sided shipper, at the same Target. What was weird is the shipper seemed to have been rifled through already, and didn’t see a single other green Skyline, until I found the Super way at the back. Score! It is a great feeling!

    Reply
  15. Trent Riley Avatar
    Trent Riley

    Scalpers need to just fuck off
    But Mattel hasn’t helped by making these cars worth a shit laod

    Reply
  16. Delta Z Avatar
    Delta Z

    You’re absolutely right, the best thing about finding $upers is finding them randomly. I found my first and so far only $uper last year at a retail store that sells homeware, snacks, party stuff and a few other things including Hot Wheels and Matchbox. I found the $uper, last years 2013 SRT Viper right when I was about to leave, right at the top right corner. Completely random Andy unexpected as I was there to see what Basic models they had.

    Reply
  17. Keith G. Avatar
    Keith G.

    I agree with Trent’s comment above, if there were more available then certain scalpers wouldn’t be making money, Mattel need to make them widely available so that we all have a chance to get one, not just the lucky few.

    Reply
  18. O Avatar
    O

    8 year drought club let’s go! Congrats though, I hunt maybe once a month so I can’t complain. Pretty shocked I even found one lol.

    Reply
  19. Speedeeone Avatar
    Speedeeone

    And what a Super to find! Congratulations!

    Last Super I found was at least 10 years ago Back before I knew what they were. I left that S2000 hanging, because I didn’t need a “slight variation” of a car I already had.

    Reply
    1. Trent Riley Avatar
      Trent Riley

      2008- S2000 wasn’t a super then

      Reply
      1. Speedeeone Avatar
        Speedeeone

        You’re right. Sure seems like it’s been 10 years. Turns out it’s only been 6. S2000 was a 2012 Super.

  20. Cody Sheets Avatar
    Cody Sheets

    Now the funny thing is when I find a chase, most seem to occur, when a new store opens around here. My first AW chase was found in Hobby Lobby when they opened (and half the M2s were chases might I add), and I found several Super Treasure Hunts at a Dollar General when it opened.

    Reply
  21. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    That’s awesome. I sure do love the unexpected finds at stores with very few cars.

    I’ve had a couple of finds like that recently. One of them was the Ultimate Chase Bone Shaker at a local grocery store with about 25-30 cars hanging on strips throughout the aisles. Extremely unexpected considering how few cars they had and the fact that I wasn’t even there for Hot Wheels. The other was at a Rite Aid pharmacy during a recent trip to California. Once again I wasn’t there for Hot Wheels, but they had just stocked about half a 2018 ‘Q’ case in their tiny toy section, and the only car with a mangled card and a hole in the blister was the Super Cruella de Vil. I grabbed the only Challenger Demon they had too. I like that one a lot.

    Reply

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