[mickman]

Here's an interesting scenario.

A packaging box of SUPER RARE cars is found in an old warehouse. The boxed cars are still packed in the original factory distribution box. ie. 6 cars per box, which has the company logo, number of cars, car type printed & date printed on the side of the factory box. It's the last known factory sealed package of cars ever !

Possible Scenarios:

Would you remove the cars & simply throw away the factory packing box as the mint boxed cars are all that matters... perhaps even dance around joyfully proclaiming to the heavens you're The Slot Car King of the world !!!

Would you photograph & video the removal of the cars from their original factory state.... & then dance around.

Or would you sit in amazement contemplating the best plan of action just might be to take no action in separating the cars.. as perhaps the cars should not be separated they may be better left with the original factory box. which unto itself has packed the boxed cars in a unique and special way.

I guess in a loose sort of way, it's ever so slightly comparable to stumbling onto an ancient Egyptian tomb .. What would you do...

Loot it and run.

Proclaim it & sell the pieces of to the highest bidder and have the pieces scattered throughout the globe or

keep it all in tact to be housed in a museum for all to see...

Hhmm.... ponderous.

 

[scalexkid]

Hmm, sell the story to the highest bidder (contacting SlotCar racing Mag/Slot-car monthly/NSCC newsletter/Racer club Mag - only hinting,mind you - at your story) hoping your mobile phone does not then get hacked

or, ebay a chance to be at the unwrapping ceremony/process, otherwise webcast it to paying subscribers.

Either way, you've got bills to pay! X-Rays & carbon dating samples to verify their provenance are not cheap - nor the burly securicor van/guarding.

Then what are you gonna do with all those begging letters? - keep on sending them?

scalexid

 

[scuderia_turini]

You're going to sell 'em.

 

[mickman]

or hide them away ...muttering to yourself.. MY PRECIOUS .. my precious....

 

[TSRF]

If they are Strombecker kits, open them up, build them and have fun!
Maybe it will make the hundreds others recently discovered more valuable...

 

[Koala2]

I think I would simply contact the SF member running that slotcar museum in the US and send the lot to him, so he can take over the sleepless nights wondering what to do with the box.

 

[TSRF]

Good suggestion! Donations are greatly encouraged.
If only there would be a few of the Japanese kits we are still seeking in there...

 

[gmac118]

you might be getting a bit carried away here. They are after all just slot cars. I think I would open them and race them!!!!!!

Grant

 

[conti_rowland]

Personally i'm with Grant. I collect slot cars not packaging materials!

Andi

 

[dgersh]

That's what I said too Andi, but I still haven't put together any of my MIB kits (and none of them are all that rare...).

Coincidence, or Fate?

By the way Mick, how did you see into my dreams? And yes, as juvenile as it may sound, I do really dream about stuff like finding slot cars in dusty old toy shops...

Don

 

[distantkiwi]

Oh this one is so easy. Get your x-rays as proof as to what is in there. Figure out how to open the box and close it again without leaving any trace. Take out all the cars and then stuff the box full of packing garbage and weights so it feel like it originally did. Sit the box on your shelf and take it to slot exhibits and what-not with the x-ray proof. Then open all the cars and put them on the track and thrash them, take some video etc etc. Then sell the cars individually one after the other on ebay as "MIB very rare last one left on planet" then to cover yourself put in very small print at the bottom "*only done one lap to prove they still go"(though this is optional) though great as an argument as to why you won't give the buyer a refund. Once that one has sold then repeat the process with the next one.

 

[conti_rowland]

Intertesting response distantkiwi.

Whilst loading the dishwasher my mind was running along similar lines.

Given the skills available in the scratchbuild forum it wouldn't actually be that hard to counterfeit any box of any cars anyone wanted. This is one of the reasons why boxes don't interest me - they really aren't that hard to reproduce if you wanted to or if it was worth something. I know now you experts will say i'm wrong but if you really think real-world for one minute i'm right.
As for x-rays you just need some beaten up versions off ebay that on x-ray would look identical....

If anyone's interested I can produce a box of said cars of anyone's choice..... PM me!

ONLY JOKING of course but food for thought.

Andi

 

[Ade]

hi
the sceanario described in post #1 has been rumoured to have occured within the record collecting market several years ago.

One band had 500 albums pressed and these then lie dormant for approx 2 decades new owner has friend who works for famous record collecting book that lists all valuable records miraculously this album is then worth or should i say is listed at £500..

What happens next is new owner sells one every couple of months through various record collecting newspapers and magazines..

Urban myth or wild rumour im not sure but got the tale of a serious collector,seller and buyer of rare records.....

 

[dgersh]

The scenario actually existed in the slot car world, probably more than once - only normal considering the market suddenly tanked in 67-68 and distributors were left with thousands of unused and unwanted kits... Many may have been trashed, but others were just left in the dust until being found many years later...

Seems there was a whole container load found in France before I was active here, and they were resold to various clubs for very little money - before the collecting trend had started of course.

Don

 

[TSRF]

Yes indeed, it has happened more than once. Think of it, it bought me a couple of really nice full-size cars...

Opening an ordinary kit of which there are plenty around is no big deal, but it becomes truly silly if the kit is quite rare. Best example is that of the Cox Chaparral 2E "mag" kit: once opened, the contents are only worth 1/5th of the intact kit. If slot car racers love to throw good money out of the window, it is a great way to do so.
However, it's a free country, do as you please... anyone has the right to make big mistakes anytime he wants to.
For me, I would rather sit on those mint and boxed kits and sell them at high prices so that I can get that beautifully restored 500cc Velocette Thruxton complete with Avon fairing, for the price of what, five of those Cox kits?

Or a lot more of the cars assembled from those kits, like 25 of them?

 

[merkit the grof]

I am with Philippe on this one, if a kit is really rare, why open it?
A bit like setting a pile of banknotes on fire, pretty dumb of you think about it.
There are so many built cars floating around that you can have "Le beurre et l'argent du beurre" ("your cake and eat it" for non bilinguals), or in slot terms: Own the kit and race the car.

Conti, of course any collecting market will attract forgers, and there are plenty of examples in the slot world.

Joel

 

[conti_rowland]

I guess the bottom line is: how rich am I against how much the car's value is.

So taking the scaley Bugatti if those 6 boxed cars were worth 6 x 6.000€ plus say 20% for being all together then i'd for sure sell 'em as is as that is a HUGE amount of money to me.

However finding someone to pay 43.000€ might be impossible anway. Since job lots cost less than singles it might indeed be better to split them and sell one every now and then though....

Once i'd flogged 5 and had 30.000€ in my pocket i'd be tempted to keep the other and if I did i'd USE it!

However if the figure was 6 x 200€ (the most any of mycars are worth) I wouldn't think twice to keep them all and use them as 1.200 euro wont make me rich......

Andi

 

[superhornets]

Hi
I must admit I have a problem with all this
I always refer to the sport I have been doing since 1962 as Slot car racing
In all those years i have never met anyone who raced a cardboard vac packed box of components
While I appreciate that for some reason unopened kits ,"Boxed art " i heard one rather pretentious dealer call them, are worth more than a slot car, with some history of being used for the purpose it was designed. I really dont understand why !
now if someone offered me a real life ford gt40 in bits ,and also offered me one that had raced at lemans which one do you think would be worth the most money I can tell you now that every time it would be the lemans racer
why is the same not true for slot cars
seem daft to me
I have meet folk who tell me they have a certain rare kit from the 60s ,and when asked how does it drive they invariably reply dont know ,havn,t built it yet ,waiting for another kit !
Iam probably missing somnething here bur I can also say that i have never built /collected any slot cars that have not been given the chance to do what they were diesigned for Ie to race
but then I dont understand folk who collect wine with no intention of drinking either

cheers otny

 

[TSRF]

Tony,
This is because you are on a different wave length, having mostly played with hand built cars for the past 45 years!

Those, of which some are truly a part of history, you can restore them and play with them, their value if any will change little.
The PRODUCTION cars that neither of us would ever have raced competitively are the subject here, and few of the true racers in the day ever even saw those mint kits, because neither of us could even afford one!

Now, some of them are basically, modern art forms and some of them NEED to be left alone so that our great grand children will have something to look at in the next 40 years when this hobby may or may no longer even exist.
You wrote a book telling the story on your side, mine will tell the story on both the pro and amateur side, as well as the story of the product. It is all good.
Let's face it, if you ran across a Scalex Bug T59 new in the box, would you go thrash it around that abominable rubber track Scalex sold at the same time?

 

[JOHN SECCHI]

Have a feeling that in 40/50 years time our grand kits won't have a clue about these kits let alone there worth

most if not all of what people pay through the nose to collect today will probably end up in a skip.
Wonder how much soilent green will be need to pick up a mint in box Cox mag 2E in 2061?

[oneofwos]