Ever accidentally bid the wrong price for an item on eBay and immediately regret it once it ends not even a minute later? An accidental extra “0” cost me about $30 more dollars than I wanted to spend about 5 years ago. Seller wouldn’t return messages and I had a number of other items from them that I also won, none more than $5 a piece. So I bit the bullet and just paid. I didn’t want to pay what I did on this, but honestly it’s not one that comes up often at all anyway.
The High Speed Wheels line (seriously annoyingly named line…) was originally from 2011/2012, designed to apparently be better on track. Exclusive wheels, cool decos, some are more desired than others. The line didn’t sell all that great, I think mostly due to their premium price, and disappeared. A modified version of the line came back in 2014, but distribution stateside was atrocious as most big retailers wanted nothing to do with it. I found one of the ones I wanted, the Jet Threat 3.0, at Kohl’s of all places. These more or less seemed to be reserved for international markets. They featured thin disc wheels, which I guess helped them be faster on the orange track? Either way, the Ford GT40 from the set garnered the most attention and nets a hefty premium now. I was more drawn to some of the HW original castings (you can see the list from the Newsletter site here).
This Jack Hammer, a casting that debuted in the 2005 Acceleracers line, is one of the 9 I want from the set. This loose one popped up on eBay from a seller that had a number of cars I went after. And unfortunately for me, I indeed hit an extra “0” in the price I was going to bid on this one with maybe a minute left in the auction, and watched the price go up WAY higher than I wanted to pay. Maybe I should have fought it, but I ended up just biting the bullet and paying. I still love this thing, but it’s definitely a lesson in triple checking the number you enter on there.
Been there, done that. I usually use the auto-bid option, and I think I accidentally set my max bid to something like $200 (had meant $20), and ended up paying $40 for something that really wasn’t worth it.
Anyway, I wasn’t even aware Jack Hammer existed. It’s a nice casting, and I can see a lot of Nomad influence.
While I’ve never ventured onto evilBay or buying cars from online auctions, I can definitely relate to the “triple check before you hit the button”, as I have done quite a few screw ups that way in the past. Speaking of the Jack Hammer, while I am not a big fan of this release or even this casting, I do love the Acceleracers line as well as the movie, and I would very much like to see more models from that line over here. I know some of them are incredibly rare and cost a bomb, if they come up for sale at all. And I always enjoy reading the stories behind them and how they were found/ acquired, just like this story.