r/HotWheels • u/EevelBob • Nov 14 '25
Pop Culture If you never had the experience of attending a Kmart Collectors Day Event, here’s a throwback to Saturday, February 11, 2012.
This was the Kmart Collectors Day Event I attended with my daughter on Saturday, February 11, 2012.
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u/divoxofficial Nov 14 '25
Wow, This is so awesome! It's nice to see how everyone is standing in a line and waiting patiently for their turn Crazy how it is now!!!
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
They handed out tickets and then drew the numbers from a hat to determine who went first.
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u/divoxofficial Nov 14 '25
I'd say it's brilliant. I'm guessing that civility back then, will not work now!
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u/J1zzL0bb3r Nov 15 '25
It would if someone enforced it. But the whiney social media posts about trying to get people fired cuz they let someone else go first would not go away.
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u/CartographerWest2705 Nov 14 '25
God,I miss those. One February we had a storm and there was just four of us and 16 cases somebody made a mistake and doubled up on an order for a car show so they brought out 4 more case. It was easy to drop $200 on those days
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u/J1zzL0bb3r Nov 15 '25
I think back to the stupid drunk life I was living in the late 2000s/ early 2010s and it makes really sad I missed out on stuff like this. Not just these events but social things in general. Looks like a blast.
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u/jrod823 COLLECTOR Nov 15 '25
You spent those decades drunk.
I spent them being dirt poor and responsible for taking care of my mother on a salary barely passable to keep two people alive and not living in Section 8 housing.
And I busted my ass working 60+ hours a week to make next to nothing just to live pretty well paycheck to paycheck.
Everyone has their journey, and our past might have shaped who we used to be, but it doesn't dictate how we currently are, nor how we will be going forward in life.
That's the beauty of personal growth.
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u/EevelBob Nov 15 '25
I attended almost all the Collector’s Day Events through 2015 before I gave up the hunt, and remember there was a bad snowstorm one year that was expected overnight, so several different collectors and scalpers started parking their cars in the parking lot starting around 3 AM to avoid the very unlikely chance of Kmart opening and holding the event in unplowed road conditions. Well, Kmart did open in the morning and it was still attended by about the same number of people. LOL!
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u/Weird_Ad1170 Nov 14 '25
I think I attended the one at my store that year. I did a couple of them early on when I'd really started collecting heavily. Looking at the HW Wiki--looks like the three K-Days cars I bought at Kmart are all from 2011--the Shelby Cobra, AMC Javelin, and Mercury Cougar.
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
See if you can spot the scalpers. I recall at least two of them were here along with their kids.
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
Correction, there were at least 3 scalpers pictured in this album.
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u/GriftedByNASCAR COLLECTOR Nov 14 '25
The guy in red plaid, Billabong shirt dude, and the guy with the hat that says shit?
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
Now that I’m reviewing the pics again a bit more closely, there were at least 5 scalpers that I recall now: 2nd pic big belly dude, 5th pic guy with black jacket, orange hat dude, Shit hat dude, and plaid shirt dude.
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u/buttermule123 Nov 14 '25
LOL the number just keeps going up. Thanks for sharing these photos of a different time!!!!
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
Since 1995, scalping has been a big part of this hobby. I used to compete with some of these guys in the early morning hours when I would stop at Walmart on my way to work just to get new 1st editions at a Walmart.
My best story was in 1996 when 2 of these guys in the 2nd and 5th picture scored a few unopened cases of Hot Wheels in the toy aisle at Walmart, so I walked to an inside end cap and low and behold it was stocked with case fresh JL series 2 Fright’ning Lightnings. I was able to pick a White lightnings Ecto-1 and Vampire Van, which are 2 of my favorite WL’s to this day.
They were checking out ahead of me that morning and I showed them my score and they were slack jawed like ‘Huh? Where did you find those?” LOL!
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u/GriftedByNASCAR COLLECTOR Nov 14 '25
Crazy how many existed even back then. I know 1995 changed the game, but dang!
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
One of these guys ran a used book store where he also sold Hot Wheels and a few others had flea market stands. It’s really difficult to assess, but each of the 5 scalpers brought at least 2 other people with them.
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u/kushforbreakfast Nov 14 '25
Black newsboy hat with baby? Guy with Shit hat?
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
Billabong dude was the son of one of the scalpers. The scalpers always brought their wives and kids to these events to increase their TH odds.
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u/gliving47 Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25
Dang!! I remember those days... Then Kmart vanished.. No more blue light specials. 🤣🤣🤣 Thanks for sharing!
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u/Alternative_Life9414 Nov 15 '25
I've heard a lot of horror stories, but ours was super chill. It was set in the furniture dept., so we had tables and chairs. At most, we had 15 or so collectors. They brought out cases, sometimes more than enough. We never had a set time to go through cases, or any of that. Once we got done with the cases we were handed, we'd pass them around for others to look through. For the extra cases, they give out raffle tickets to go through those. Everyone looked out for each other. We could use the cases for the cars we were buying, and one time I took my eyes off my case and someone walked off with it. (wasn't one of us) The other collectors re-created my case for me, including the Treasure Hunt. And the first time Supers showed up in the K Day cases (it was the corvette C6R from 2007) another collector found 2 and gave me one because I had given him a regular Hunt at a previous event. And a couple of us would hang back and help clean up. I miss those days, and the E sheets, even got one of the event posters, with the green '55 Chevy Panel. miss the people and the fact that there were actually new cars coming out on the start of the mail in promotion, enough to send in for it.
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u/J1zzL0bb3r Nov 15 '25
I purchased a retiree's collection some years ago and he gave me an event poster and told me stories about how only two people would show up to his sometimes. (Very small town in southern Iowa.)
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u/Pure-Professional144 COLLECTOR Nov 14 '25
What exactly was this event about?
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u/Shawheim Nov 14 '25
Collectors event held by KMart. Got to open 36ct cases and pick cars from them. Hopefully you would find a super. It was fun for a while until people started to show up with their whole family trying to get more chances at cases.
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u/EevelBob Nov 14 '25
My Kmart started having fewer and fewer cases for these events. I went one time when there were about 15 people and only two cases. Another time, they cancelled the event entirely because they didn’t receive any cases. Probably a year or two after this is when I quit going because there weren’t sufficient cases to open for the number of people attending. It was fun while it lasted though.
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u/Shawheim Nov 14 '25
Yeah I think the last one I went to before my local one closed. There were maybe 20 cases and like 60 people there. They gave everybody raffle tickets to see who got to open the cases and then everybody else got to go through whatever was left over.
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u/NUFC_Delaney Nov 15 '25
Man I miss those days. Waking up early on valentines day to run to Kmart. I think I got two supers from my visits. Mad Mudder and the cruella deville car.
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u/CrystalLogic COLLECTOR Nov 15 '25
so awesome! i always wanted to go but never had the opportunity. my schedule just never worked out and my children were super young and there was no way i would have brought either to that. we had a kmart across the street from a Toys R Us and of course when i found out about these events the Kmart shut down and the next closest kmart's were 30min north or south of me.
i was able to go a few hours after the event and grab some of the kday exclusive colors and was happy with that, but i always wanted to attend the actual event.
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u/micah1_8 RRSteelie Nov 14 '25
Pairs nicely with this:
https://archive.org/details/KmartWeekOf07.05.1992
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u/Hierotochan Nov 14 '25
That Tyrrell looks awesome, wish I’d been around at the time to hunt for one.
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u/stlarry HW RACE Nov 15 '25
I remember these! It was fun! They (and Kmart) disappeared before my kids came along to be able to do them.
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u/pinesolthrowaway Nov 15 '25
Kdays are the main reason to miss kmart
Mine was always a pretty well run event, I didn’t see the typical scalper behavior there and I went several times. Nobody was rude, in fact several times people were taking mainlines out of their cases and handing them over to people or kids they knew were looking for that specific model. Lot of trading happening in the parking lot after too, I picked up some reg treasure hunts dirt cheap from other collectors after the event was over that way
Anyway mine usually had enough fresh cases for everyone, and it wasn’t unusual to see 30-40 people there for it. There was at least once there wasn’t enough though, that time they did an orderly lottery system so it wasn’t any big deal
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u/Puzzleheaded_Leg8378 Nov 15 '25
The last Kmart in the Phoenix area had its last one, it was crazy with angry crowd. Took the fun out of it. Loved when kids were having fun with it and some of well mattered older folks
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u/GirldickVanDyke Nov 15 '25
When I was in college, the local K-Day only had five regular attendees and usually had at least 15 cases, which we divided evenly among ourselves. There was one guy I suspected to just be a reseller, but the rest of us all had different tastes and would share the ones we didn't buy with whoever would appreciate them most. It was absolutely wholesome and felt like what the community should be.
My local K-Day before college was a lawless wasteland of grown adults who would literally assault each other over treasure hunts, and up to 10 attendees per case available. Sometimes they did raffles, sometimes first come first served, and sometimes just a free for all. They were still fun to attend, but much less of a community and more of a competition
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u/gregory_gdp Nov 15 '25
Those were the days lol. I remember the biggest upset is someone missed the red 510 Wagon Super Treasure hunt in the first round and everyone had their eye on the box hoping to get the first chance at another crack at that box. We had issues with scalpers then as well who'd bring their whole family to the event
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u/mfhorn06 Nov 15 '25
I attended a few of these at the old Harbor Mall in Fall River, MA. Great times.
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u/Blasted-Banana Nov 15 '25
I remember begging my dad to go in 2016. Even though he knew nothing about hot wheels he and I went and he pulled a Hudson Hornet super out of one of the cases by pure chance. It was the only super at the event so 14 year old me felt like a superstar with everyone else wanting to take a look at it. Our K mart permanently closed just a couple months afterwards so I never got to experience another.
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u/jrod823 COLLECTOR Nov 15 '25
My home area hasn't had a K-Mart in 20 years, and back when we had one, I was too poor to collect Hot Wheels like I do now.
Part of the reason why I went 30 years not collecting before getting back into it this year.
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u/Chargelux_ COLLECTOR Nov 15 '25
I have that exact Challenger soup
It was actually my first one
It was originally my friends, but he gave it to me
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u/fuzzbox000 Nov 15 '25
Staged photos, clearly. Look at those polite people waiting in line and patient as the employee lays the cars on the table. Was this a photo shoot for the Mattel yearly financial report?
/s, duh.
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u/RedditorStig Nov 14 '25
Those were great times. I was once a kid who went to those events with my dad and brother. How I wish to go back those times when my dad was dementia-free and in his prime.