Around 2019, a new spark started for Mr. Fry. With no intentions of ever getting into a hobby or a collection of toy cars, Mr. Fry was out strolling around a Target with the oldest of his three children, when his daughter saw a display of Hot Wheels. This not only made Mr. Fry was happy in the sense that his daughter had found toys that she liked to play with, but it also brought back memories of when he was a child and spent hours playing with Hot Wheels cars. Mr. Fry got curious about what Hot Wheels were like now compared to when he was a kid. He started looking through the pegs and found a certain one that sparked his interest. “From there it all began!” Mr. Fry stated.
After that day Mr. Fry continued to go out when he had free time from his full-time job as a teacher at Potosi High School. He said he doesn’t do it for resale value, or the sake of the secondary market; he does it for the sake of a childhood memory and the fun of it. Some people ruin such a hobby for others, they go out and only go for the Hot Wheels of a higher value on the second-hand market. Mr. Fry informed me that these people are called scalpers. This ruins the hobby for those who want to just do it as a hobby and have fun with their kids or family. It creates a bonding moment with his family and sometimes his students, he explained.
The hardest part of a collection such as his, with “probably over 1,000” toy cars in his collection, is that Mr. Fry struggles to find space to store all of them in his home. Mr. Fry likes to go out during the summer break months and enjoys his hobby. Mr. Fry’s children have collections of their own, with cars that interest them. Mr. Fry hopes that one day his kids can take over his collection and enjoy it as much as he has. To this day, he brings in new Hot Wheels to open and put on his Hot Wheel shelf in the rear of his classroom.
“This is a good conversation starter. It strikes up a conversation in my students, and even sometimes creates a bond over a shared hobby between my students and me,” Mr. Fry said, with a huge smile across his face.
Mr. Fry has a few Super Treasure Hunts within his collection; these are the rare models of certain cars that “hunters”, people who go out looking for Hot Wheels, go looking for and hope to have in their collection. Mr. Fry told me that he collects the cars that he likes, and really only looks for the ones that would interest him and would make him happier to have in his collection. He also told me, “Get what you like; don’t follow social media influencers, and most importantly do what you want with them, they are just toy cars after all!”
Mr. Fry has now been collecting for around five or six years and doesn’t anticipate stopping any time soon. He will always enjoy the memories he has made and will continue to make in this hobby, with older and newer collectors. When going out, Mr. Fry also looks forward to running into other collectors and trading what they have to offer for some of his Hot Wheels.