This weekend was another K-Mart Collector’s Day and fortunately enough the K-Mart in my town was participating. I had read about the wonders of a Collector’s Day on the HWC forums. I read about how crazy they were with people fighting over raffles, Treasure Hunts, and having to wait in long lines. I wasn’t able to make it to the previous Collector Day but this time I was excited to see what all the hubbub was about.
What to expect?
One of the exclusives I found
I know every K-Mart and every town is different, but I had seen some pictures from some crazy K-Mart days. In some places the Hot Wheels bus shows up with games, balloons, and the whole circus. I also read stories of people getting raffle tickets for a chance to rummage through boxes or even buy a box of unopened cars. It was also horrible to read about older collector’s getting pissed at kids that get to pick before them because “they don’t know” what’s special about that car. Those are the worst stories.
The HWC Day on 11/7 started at 9:00a at my K-Mart. I didn’t get there early or even at 9am. I’m not a door warmer and never shall be. But after some morning errands I stopped in to see how things were run and maybe pick up some nice cars. I had already made up my mind that all the special day cars were gone, picked over by the door warmers.
I wasn’t expecting any circus at my K-Mart. My town isn’t what you’d call high profile, but I guess was expecting some signage or something. To my surprise, I saw only one small sign in the entrance promoting the HWC Day. I headed back to the toys section past all the people waiting in line for layaway, to find my HWC Day Hot Wheels. The regular Hot Wheels aisle didn’t seem to have anything special…your normal selection of mainlines, but I did find a few I was looking for.
See more photos on the Redline Derby Flickr collection
Little fanfare
Another KMart special
Leaving the aisle, there was a table between the appliances and Christmas discounts loaded up with Hot Wheels. I stopped without my thought and rummaged through the cars. At first I didn’t see anything too special and figured this was just another table with Hot Wheels on it. But then I found one…then two…of the HWC Day cars and then I realized that this was HWC Day at K-Mart: a table with a couple boxes of cars dumped out. Like I said, I wasn’t expecting some huge fanfare or anything, but I at least expected a sign on the table that said, “hey, this is the HWC Day exclusives, buy me!”
But there was nothing. It was a kind of depressing, honestly, but it all really didn’t surprise me. Maybe they had done something special at 9:00a when the store opened, but given I found several of the exclusive cars, I’m guessing they didn’t do much. Especially this close to the holiday shopping season, I would have thought K-Mart would at least give direction to their exclusives, if nothing else to nab the mom or grandmother to buy an “exclusive” car for the kids.
Underwhelming
And here I was kind of worried that I would be a 30-something amongst kids pining over Hot Wheels cars. Thankfully, that awkward situation never came about…the only thing awkward was that I was the only person rummaging through the HWC Day table looking for exclusives and other cars. Besides the good finds, the best part of the trip was making a little boy jealous as he walked by the table and saw me holding 10 cars in my hand. I know, that’s probably mean, but I remember being the boy that was denied…we all do…and now we’re making up for it.
So, K-Mart Collector’s Day…a little underwhelming, but I don’t need all the pomp and circumstance if it lets me score a few nice looking cars.
How was your KMart Collector’s Day? Was it more than a table?
