My Hot Wheels Redline Alive 55 Lemon Yellow Chevy Nomad

For over two years I had this Hot Wheel on my Ebay queue. But I never had the chutzpah to make an offer I thought the seller would accept. In that two years I probably only saw a handful even close to it sell. For some reason I really wanted this one.

When I was in single digits my friend Brad down the street had the best Hot Wheels collection on any kid in town. We didn't so much play with his Hot Wheels as we gave audience to them. Sure, me and my brother had many Hot Wheels, but we had a nasty habit of actually playing with them. And they often met tragic ends. Many an avalanche of boulders claimed one of our even most prized Hot Wheels.

Because they were only a dollar. Less than a dollar. You got them on your birthday. You always got one for gift exchange at school. They weren't considered special or something to be treasured. They were toys to be played with.

Little did I know somewhere out there were many kids like Brad who thought differently about their Hot Wheels. I thank them now for being such good curators of these cultural artifacts.

The first day we got our baseball mitts my brother and I were out the door and didn't have much time for any toys after that. But a few years ago I just had this desire to start collecting redline Hot Wheels.

Lemon yellow Hot Wheels Alive 55 redline

All Alive 55's were made in Hong Kong. 

Auguest 12, 2026 update: This was the last Hot wheel I sold on Ebay when I let go of the collection. 

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Star Wars Original 12 Figures From Kenner

(o) KENNER (o)

VINTAGE STAR WARS

FIRST 12 FIGS WITH STAND!

THIS IS THE COMPLETE SET OF THE FIRST 12 VINTAGE STAR WARS FIGURES WITH ALL ORIGINAL VINTAGE WEAPONS. THERE IS NOTHING REPRODUCTION IN THIS LISTING!

I BELIEVE THE DEATH SQUAD COMMANDER IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A DARK BLUE GUN BUT HERE HE HAS A LIGHTER BLUE IMPERIAL BLASTER. ALL OTHER WEAPONS ARE CORRECT INCLUDING LEIAS BLACK BLASTER. THERE ARE NO MAJOR FLAWS IN ANY FIGURE EXCEPT FOR LEIA WHO HAS A SMALL RIP IN HER CAPE (PICTURED). ASIDE FROM HER RIP THERE ARE SLIGHT PAINT CHIPS ON A FEW OF THE FIGS BUT IN GENERAL THEY ARE ALL IN VERY GOOD SHAPE. THE STAND HAS A SMALL CHIP ON THE BACK (PICTURED). 

Star Wars original 12 Kenner action figures, all original, with original capes and weapons, on a Kenner stand I believe you had to mail in from a General Mills cereal offer. I know this because my mom got this for us, although I don't remember having most of these action figures, just Darth Vader, C3PO, R2D2, Chewbacca, and a Jawa. We had no interest in the human characters.

We saw Star Wars at the Robin outdoor theater I think the summer after it came out, when it was re-released. Of course it was awesome, and we were blown away, but we didn't really collect the toys very much. 

C3PO and Obi Wan Kenobi

We called Darth Vader Dark Vader the entire summer until school started and the other kids corrected us. I still persisted in believing his name was Dark Vader, and it was not apparent to me until The Empire Strikes Back that he was a human in a suit of Space Agre armor and not a robot. 

We never had or wanted either one of these action figures. In 1978 it just didn't seem to make any sense to us. 

Chewbacca and Princess Leia

To us R2D2 and C3PO were the true stars of the movie. I didn't detect until much later how much of a jerk C3PO was.

We're far enough down that no one is reading anymore, so I'm going to tell this awful story. We didn't have these toys, because in general we couldn't afford them. For Christmas 1978 all I wanted was the Millennium Falcon from the Sears catalog. I knew that wasn't possible. I did get the Land Cruiser, however, and I was happy. Knowing my brother could only have been four years old at the time makes this story all the more awful, and adding to that awfulness that the man who owned the Ben Franklin lived across the street from us, but we coerced our youngest brother to shoplift a Jawa. I think the action figures might have only been like $2.98 at that time, but we didn't have it. 

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