I had the opportunity to pop into a Lidl today, don't often get to them. The HWs box took a bit of finding first of all, but eventually I located it. It had also been well picked over, but it must have been the recent one as I found the blue '73 Jeep pickup. Also got a maroon '78 Dodge truck and for the sake making up the 3 for £4 offer a '55 Chevy gasser ("The Collector"). No sign of the Civic, Audi Quattro, Alfa etc.
Ex- @BorniteIdentity Avensis SR had an MoT today, not immediately great news but it'll depend how weldable it is.....
Most of it seems to be the back of the sills and rear inner arches.
For something that's done 282.5k there's a lot it didn't fail on, so hopefully they can do something as it'd be great to get it to 300,000 miles.
SATURDAY TAT SAFARI PT 2
Yes, there's more.
Of course there's more. I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to this sort of thing.
There's probably not much point in giving you a blow-by-blow account of my perambulations between each store etc, so here's a summary:
Cluster 5:
This is Cityside Retail Park, and encompasses a few other retailers towards the north of the city.
This has proved not a bad hunting ground in the past - especially on some less than stellar Friday mornings, since it's just beside the M2 on-ramp.
B&M Cityside- smallish and cluttered store; one Hot Wheels shipper containing the dregs of the early to mid-2023 releases. A few early 2023 Matchbox on clip strips flanking the aisles, but mainly luggage tugs and those acid green fire engines.
Home Bargains Cityside - big store, but light on Mattel. No Matchbox at all; no Hot Wheels mainlines either. Couple of Monster Trucks is the height of it. Does still have some Hot Wheels playsets at cheap prices, but they really do nothing for me (transporters shaped like sharks, things with snakes around them).
Asda Home - as pointed out elsewhere, their toy section invariably looks like the aftermath of a church jumble sale after the Women's Institute shock troops have torn through it. Some old (late 2022/early 2023) Hot Wheels mainlines, but mostly unwanted fantasy stuff; some current semi-premium and premium HW releases too, but with any sought-after ones already snaffled. Majorette towing twin-packs, some buses and things as well. Lots of larger-scale Jada film 'n' TV vehicles too, but they don't do a lot for me either.
Tesco Cityside - a small and rather depressing Tesco store that involves passing through an awful lot of barriers and scanners to get in and get back out again. Well, it is kinda in New Lodge, one of the most economically deprived wards in Belfast. Accordingly, no Matchbox at all and only a handful of very old 2022 release Hot Wheels still malingering in a creased shelf tub.
Fun fact: New Lodge was the 'hopeless place' used to film the video for the Rihanna/ Calvin Harris track 'We Found Love'.
Poundland Cityside - a very large, two-storey branch that was the site of the Great 50p Matchbox Mixup this time last year. Had been a source of significant quantities of excellent Hot Wheels last year too, but their peg allocation has shrunken down considerably in recent months and they remain stuck with late 2023 selections. A couple of 2024 Matchbox were still swinging on some very inaccessible pegs up top, so they must have cracked open a case recently, but there's none I'm still looking for. Missed out there.
Tesco Antrim Road - scruffy mid-size store with low ceilings; probably used to be a Crazy Prices back in the day, before the carpetbaggers at Tesco bought 'em out in the late 90s. Not much in the way of toys; a few early 2023 fantasies loose on a shelf were the best they could muster.
Asda Shore Road - similar to Tesco, but with a few 5-packs in addition to the dregs of the early 2024 Hot Wheels mainline selection. This seems to be the same case selection that the red Proton came in; obviously there were none of those left hiding in there...
Which brought me to the top of the Shore Rd, under the M2 flyover, and into CLUSTER 6:
This is the vast, sprawling retail hydra spanning Newtownabbey and Glengormley, right on the very edge of Belfast, comprising Abbeycentre, Longwood Retail Park, Abbey Retail Park, Valley Retail Park, and Northcott Shopping Centre.
Poundland Longwood - recently opened store that had a lot of Mattel diecast this time last year - unfortunately this has shrunk down quite a bit. Some Matchbox remained, but again all just early 2023 releases like the AMC Eagle:
Hot Wheels are stuck in mid-2023 cases, apparently. Nothing I'm desperate to add to the collection, unfortunately.
Home Bargains Longwood - apparently the biggest branch of Home Bargains in Ireland, this was formerly a Homebase store. Had been sporadically excellent for Hot Wheels, and also stocked some very cheap Matchbox Action Drivers playsets last year - but alas not so much anymore. A few depleted pegs of late 2023 HW mainlines were the height of it. Meh.
TK Maxx Longwood - fairly big store with a Homesense sub-store in it; this place has formerly given me jackpot finds of 1/43 magazine partworks, but not so much lately. Majorette and Siku mainlines and premiums crop up here occasionally, Hot Wheels less so, and I have seen some overpriced Matchbox sets on the shelves - but none of those things were visible on Saturday. Double meh.
Matalan Longwood - bit of a wildcard, but hear me out; a few weeks back I was in here with MrsDC, and noticed they had Hot Wheels racked at knee height in the queue for the tills. Stupid place for them, as the queue's moving, so you can't really stop and crouch down to see what was there; and that's probably why it was all older stuff. Also, a £2.40 price tag was a bit spendy, BUT a three-for-two offer was flagged.
At that time, I could see a Nissan Maxima drift wagon on the pegs (which I don't have), and a very green Audi A4 R-series estate (which I do have, but in a less appealing black colour), but I couldn't quite see an appealing third model that would make it worth my while - but then the queue was moving, and MrsDC was giving me a very particular sort of look, so I didn't.
But on Saturday morning, I was back alone - and fully prepared to block the queue if need be.
My first shock was realising that the three-for-two offer no longer applied, and that some poor sod had been tasked with going through the entire stock to tear off the no-longer-relevant part of the price sticker.
The second shock was that the green Audi was gone.
Did I really want to spend £2.40 on a Nissan Maxima?
Well, I know I probably should have bought one back last summer when they could be found for £1.50 in Poundland, but hindsight is always 20:20, as they say. I hadn't seen any others anywhere lately... and I had been kicking myself for a while now...
Finally, currency was spent.
Tesco Abbeycentre - one of the first purpose-built Tesco stores built at the end of the last century, it now looks kinda small and dingy inside. Not much of a toy selection, with no Matchbox at all and just a handful of unwanted 2023 Hot Wheels mainlines rattling round a tub amid assorted detritus.
Poundland Abbeycentre - a large, new store in what was formerly a Primark branch, this has been one of the best stores to find newer Matchbox. This is where I finally happened across a much-desired Volvo 240 in January, and recently bagged a number of 2024 release VW Golfs, Lamborghini LP003s and Ford Rancheros for the delectation of a few thread regulars (and myself, of course).
More Matchbox here than Hot Wheels, unusually. But I think I have most of the items here that I'm interested in. I'm hoping that there's another fresh case out the back, just...
The 1980 Chevrolet El Camino and the Rockin' Railer seem to be some of the most common peg-warmers to be found in most places - which is odd in the case of the Chevy, as it's really a very lovely model in a great shade of green.
Ah well.
B&M Abbeycentre - biggish store, which typically has one of the best Mattel diecast selections on offer locally. I got a lot of Matchbox here early last year, and it's also proved a surprisingly rich seam of Hot Wheels semi-premiums, with the bulk of my HW Flying Customs and Ultra Hots finds coming from within its walls - along with Anniversary releases and other special edition lines. However, there's fewer and fewer mainlines left warming the pegs now, all of them 2023 releases.
However, I was in this store a few weeks ago and noticed they had some of the 2024 Fast & Furious 'HW Decades Of Fast' silver-line releases. None of the Jettas (obviously), but I did quite like the Buick Grand National and the weird Chevrolet El Camino with the (thankfully removable) cage around it. But there were no prices on the pegs... so, chary of a shock at the till, I left them behind.
But on Saturday, possibly embittered and rather flattened by my unrewarded tat-hunting efforts, I buckled.
£3.49 each for the F&F releases. That's not too bad, I guess...
Definitely flagging at this point, I decide to sack off the Smyth's Toys superstore up at Valley Retail Park - I'd done well to find another Hot Wheels premium Mk2 Escort RS1800 on the pegs there about a fortnight ago, but felt it unlikely I'd be able to repeat that trick. Their Matchbox range is down to two half-filled pegs of early 2023 releases, so I doubt there's been much improvement since. Though now I'm doubting myself...
Similarly, I couldn't be arsed hauling myself up the hill to Northcott; the morning's travails had done nothing to convince me that their Tesco Extra might have anything special on the shelves.
Ditto The Range; if the Connswater branch was still displaying last year's releases, chances were the Northcott branch would be the same.
So, I went home.
I didn't think it fair of me to put MrsDC through the worry-mill any longer; I'd been gone for hours, and doubtless she'd be wearing a track in the carpet from pacing up and down, anticipating my safe return from Tatland.
In the event, she was still asleep when I got back. Oh well.
But at least I could make myself a coffee and pop the blister packs...
...then have a good ol' think about what I was doing with my life.
Two Black Tulip 1275GTs. I could no longer resist.
I have number 741...
and number 753. So nowt exciting there.
Both look OK and free from defects, and a first the front looks better than the previous releases.
The back lights still look too long though.
Paint finish and details look good, but at £36 they are expensive when compared to a resin cast from the likes of Spark or NEO
Those headlamps look rubbish.
Why did I buy two I hear you ask? Well there are some details about this car that are wrong. Who ever restored the car that it is based on has not gone for an original specification. Black Tulip cars only came with a Geranium (red) or Ochre (orange yellow) interior with red or yellow side stripes respectively. Silver sid estripes and a black interior are wrong.
So I will be pulling one apart to make a correct spec car out of one. There are no screws in the base so it looks like either the grille or the front bumper hold the model together.
I like the speaker grille on the rear shelf.
I'm thinking it is the dark colour which has helped teh model to look better, but there is still room for improvement.
Ex- @BorniteIdentity Avensis SR had an MoT today, not immediately great news but it'll depend how weldable it is.....
Most of it seems to be the back of the sills and rear inner arches.
For something that's done 282.5k there's a lot it didn't fail on, so hopefully they can do something as it'd be great to get it to 300,000 miles.
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