It has been another interesting month collecting wise. I didn’t try selling any of my collection at Dry Bridge market, as in previous months.

I picked up a few oddities at the beginning of the month. None of these are the type of model I usually collect.

I looked at the London Routemaster Bus in London Buses. The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile is a strange looking publicity vehicle for Hot Dogs, this year Hot Wheels has a new Hot Dog vehicle the Street Wiener which has yet to show up here.

Rivited is a plastic model that came in a “Sweet Box” with a handful of sweets, I was just curious to see what it was about, it comes with its own launcher (a little like a Maisto Key car). I think the Hot Wheels Sweet boxes are primarily for the Russian market, the packaging and most of the information is in Russian.



There has been no new Hot Wheels stock in Tbilisi for many months, a local toy store, Pepela had a promotion on all their stock, where on taking an item to the counter you could draw a folded piece of paper from a bucket, which when unfolded would show your discount – this could be 11%, 22%, 33% or 44% (celebrating the shop’s 11th anniversary). I did this twice both times drawing out 11%, on the second occasion the assistant drew out a 22% for me. The promotion worked, I picked up two models I had passed over several times before: an Aston Martin “Spectre” DB10 and a 2015 Ford Mustang GT Convertible.

There has been no new Hot Wheels in the city but XS Toys had brought in a lot of new Majorette models, unfortunately there was no Jaguar F Type on their pegs, the only “Premium” model was a Mercedes G63 with matt black paint, a nice model but no Jaguar.

I also picked up a Renault Alpine A110-50 (which I reviewed earlier: Brand Comparison: Renault Alpine A110-50: Majorette v Bburago) from the Street Cars line.

New models may have been lacking but as usual I found some of my more interesting purchases secondhand. I found some interesting pieces at Dry Bridge market: a Norev Citroen SM Presidentielle in 1:43 scale, a Matchbox Pontiac, a Hot Wheels Toyota MR2 and a Corgi Juniors Buick Regal, a replica of the one Kojak drove.

The Norev Citroen SM Presidentielle at 20 lari ($7.66) was my most expensive purchase of the month, bought from Gocha, who frequently has models of great interest. Henri Chapron built 2 SMs for the official duties of the French president

I was surprised Karo only charged me 7 lari ($2.68) for Kojak’s Buick Regal, Karo’s prices are usually the most teeth-suckingly exorbitant at Dry Bridge.

For really low prices, I visited some secondhand toy shops around the Central Station and picked up a few models for just a lari each.

Three of the models are Matchbox (my favourite brand): a Sambron Jacklift this model is at least 23 years old and probably more as on the base it is marked “Made in England”(produced from 1978-1994), the Faun Quarry Dump Truck was produced in the 1990s. The helicopter: Rescue Chopper is newer and came in the 2004 Police Vehicle 5 Pack. The final model is a cheaply made Chinese model of a Lamborghini Miura, on the base it is just marked “Made in China” and has a number (817) but it is clearly a Miura, so there was no way I would leave that when the asking price is a mere lari.

Totals: 15 Models: 4 Matchbox, 5 Hot Wheels , 2 Majorette, 1 Norev, 1 Corgi Juniors and 2 brand unidentified Made in China

5 bought new, 10 bought secondhand

Outlets: 1 Secondhand toy store, 4 cheap secondhand toy store, 2 Pepela, 2 XS Toys, 4 Dry Bridge Market (2 Karo, 1 Gocha, 1 other), 1 Carrefour and 1 Clothing Market

Total cost 79.98 lari ($30.64)