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Collecting Diecast Vehicles is a fun hobby for folks of all ages
By Robert W. Benjamin
Almost everyone has played with diecast vehicles when they were a young child. When I went to grade school my friends and I collected ' Hot Wheels ' cars. We would make race tracks and construction zones in the dirt piles out back of our school and play with the vehicles at recess time. I remember having a holder that looked like a suitcase only smaller, it would open and inside I had probably 20 different vehicles, ranging from cars, to trucks and a few other things. We would play in the dirt with our diecast vehicles, racing them, or pretending we were construction crews, and we would dig tunnels in the dirt, and make hills and bridges to push are little cars and trucks around on. Probably most folks like myself lost or threw away them diecast vehicles we had as young children, or they got lost like all of the other toys we had when we were young. Some folks saved there's and now days some of them are probably quite rare and valuable to diecast collectors.
It seems that when I was a young boy, we only heard of ' Hot Wheels ', at least that is the brand that my friends and I bought, collected and played with. Now days there are tons of different companies and they make diecast vehicles of every kind, there are cars, airplanes, construction vehicles, boats, military vehicles, and more. When first starting to collect diecast vehicles, you must decide which types you really want because there are a lot of choices, you can collect a certain make and model of car, such as a Chevrolet Nova, or you may wish to just collect yellow diecast construction vehicles, or military vehicles, the choice is up to you.
Diecast vehicles are pretty inexpensive for a lot of the new ones in stores and for some of the older ones that are common. You can often find them in the local drugstore or any Kmart or Walmart, and even a lot of grocery stores have a rack or area where you can find diecast vehicles, they often sell new for under $3.00 each, and sometimes you can find them in a bargain bin or on sale for ' 2 for $2.00 ', or even less.
Probably one of the best places to find a rare or missing diecast vehicle for your collection is on eBay. Another great place to often find rare and unique diecast vehicles at very low prices is yard sales. I went to a few yard sales, last summer with my daughter and I saw a lot of diecast vehicles, and many were 25 cents each and some were less. If you look you can usually find a pile or box of assorted toys at a yard sale, these often have numerous plastic soldiers, trucks and cars, and some old non-clothed dolls, and if you dig or search through these piles or boxes of old junk toys, you can often find diecast vehicles at the bottom. The diecast vehicles are smaller and heavier then the plastic toys, so they tend to drop down to the bottom of the piles like gold nuggets in a stream.
Back around 9 years ago when I was still married, my wife and I bought one of them cheap metal detectors, the ones you can get at discount stores for around $50 or so. We went outside and in our yard where we lived at that time, we found 7 old diecast vehicles. Once we took them inside and cleaned them up, they were all in great condition, despite being buried for a few years. The vehicles were all made by ' TOOTSIE ', I looked on ebay at the time and discovered that the vehicles were worth around $15 or more, so if you have a metal detector, you can probably find some nice diecast vehicles for free, by searching yards and old school grounds.
Once you start building up your diecast vehicle collection, you should consider getting a display case to show it off. If you have some talent and a few tools, you can easily build a display case in your garage or workshop, or if you look on ebay they always have a large amount of diecast vehicle display cases.
There is computer software that is made just for collecting diecast vehicles. Anyone who has a small or large diecast vehicle collection can easily keep track of what vehicle they have, the color, condition, cost, value, scale and lots of other info for each record (vehicle). This is the most easiest to use software of it's kind, and it is made 100% for diecast collecting. The software is described in detail and you can download a free demo version of it at this website address:
http://www.rb59.com/diecast
By Robert W. Benjamin
Copyright © 2006
You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter or on your web site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without modification except for formatting needs or grammar corrections.
About the Author
Robert W. Benjamin has been in the software business on the internet for over 5 years, and has been producing low-cost software for the past 25+ years. He first released software on the AMIGA and C64 computer systems in the late 1970's-80's.
RB59 Software
http://www.rb59.com/software
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