The collectors who spend thousands on rare Hot Wheels -- Every year, Mattel sells nearly $1B worth of new toy cars to kids. But on the secondary market, adult collectors and dealers reign supreme.
By day, Bruce Pascal is a successful commercial real estate executive who brokers multimillion-dollar deals in the nation’s capital. By night, he buys $5k Hot Wheels cars on eBay.
The 59 year old owns what is considered the world’s most valuable Hot Wheels collection, a staggering array of 7k rare toy cars that are collectively insured for $1.5m. Many are prototypes that were acquired from former Mattel employees, including a pink 1969 Rear-Loading Beach Bomb valued at ~$150k.
Five decades ago, Hot Wheels were America’s hottest new plaything. Today, the children of the ‘60s are fueling a small but mighty collectors’ market that wheels and deals in obscure corners of the internet.
Pascal is one of a handful of super collectors, dealers, and middlemen who pay top dollar for the rarest cars. It’s a colorful group that includes an ex-BMX stunt rider, an auto mechanics teacher, and a man who owns a geese-removal business.
How did one-time 59-cent toy cars become 5-figure collectibles? And what drives grown men and women to spend princely sums chasing them?
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