A while back at topic was started that showed a pile of MTH production samples that a certain entity bought from MTH and was going to do a large, public auction offering for. I'm not here to promote their interests, but to follow up on what has been seen (for those interested and willing to seek).
When I first heard about all of these cars, I was skeptical about how truely "rare" they are or if they were true "prototypes", but knew the basis for their availability from MTH. What they are in effect are the first cars that are produced for a given production run and sent to MTH for approval, prior to running the entire production batch. In essence, the large majority of them are no different than the actual production run cars that you could have bought from your dealer. When these cars were sent for approval, they were marked up with a marker pen on the bottom of the car and have a loose "approval" tag looped onto the car. What was more curious and interesting was where a car might have been rejected and thus having this one car made that might be different from the actual production run. Thus far, I've not seen any this way (though I may have missed one/some) and feel that there is a curiosity still to paying attention.
What has been more interesting, particularly for updating my MTH Product Reference Guides, has been to see the bidding action on many very hard to find cars that have been seen in the overall group put up thus far. I'm interested to confirm that my books maintain accurate product availability ratings and seeing the level of bidding interest in certain cars, I'm pleased to confirm the accuracy of my information. It appears that many of the bidders are perhaps working from a knowledge that certain hard to find cars, which have had little opportunity to be purchased up to now, are making an appearance through this large offering. Many common cars are going without bids, but many of the truely hard to find cars are seeing some very high winning bids.
One of the rarest of all MTH items is currently up on an auction: The Mistui Steel Coil Car. This might be the only chance for the general hobby to have a shot at this car. It's already going high, but it's a special item.
Going forward, it'll be interesting to see if other rare items come up from this large pile of cars. I know I'm paying attention, as the collector in me is looking to fill in some holes in my collection, but I've already seen some very tough to find cars go by without bids, while other items have gotten some serious action.
It's interesting. At least to me as an MTH fan and collector.
