Since we are at another card design transition, on-card or completist collectors have questions about the transition again so here’s a brief recap of U.S. releases during the transitions period … and I’ll cover the Canadian cards at a later post.

In the summer of 2007, the Sarge recall hit – just as case T had started shipping. Mattel cut off further shipments and asked re-sellers to return it since it contained a Sarge but more importantly, no one was sure if any of the other CARS had excessive lead and obviously Mattel wanted to be certain – embarrassing to have a make a second recall. Most retailers had not received case T yet and if they did, they returned the cases. All stores pulled Sarge and most Target’s pulled ALL their stock – since they lump all single CARS under one DPCI (and not UPC’s) … it was the summer of no CARS.

🙁

There were three NEW CARS in case T (back then, it was one new CAR per case pack)

Including the eagerly awaited Dale Jr.

No one is certain how many cases were actually sold and how many cases actually made it out in the wild? A few thousand? Probably …

So from early August to mid September, there was hardly anything new on the shelves at all until the Wal Mart pallet of exclusive 8 appeared out of the blue. At that time, Mattel also shipped CASE U which contain 1 more each of Bob Cutlass, Dale Jr. & Mario Andretti. But Mattel did not supply very many cases either and then canceled CASE V & W to begin the switchover to WORLD OF CARS which began shipping in October.

So, these Supercharged cards are probably the rarest and hardest to find because they appeared in only two abbreviated shipments – unfortunately there is no way to tell how many are out there but it’s probably correct to guess that combined – both shipments they number no more than the chase figures of 20,000 for ‘Stickers’ McQueen.*

And maybe even numbers approaching Blu Ray McQueen of 15,000 or maybe even less to the 10,000 number but again, that’s just speculation … it’s probably safe to guess no more than 20k – below that might be too low but no one knows since it a was a period of shipments being returned, lead testing and card design transition …

ADDENDUM: A fourth Supercharged CAR that only appeared in CASE U was Darrell Cartrip so in theory, he was made in fewer quantity but generally he garners much less interest because a) he was immediately re-shipped in the next cases (as WOC) and b) shipments of just Darrell Cartrip was sent directly to Darrell Watrip for his store/online store – while no one knows exactly how many that was, both factors play a part.

The next question is whether during this current transition from WORLD OF CARS to WORLD OF CARS: RACE O RAMA, are there any “new” Dale/Bob & Mario cards being shorted and if they are worth extra money?

And/or what’s the value of the Kmart Piston Cup Racer 5 in terms of its scarcity or rarity?

First, the transition question. At one point, we thought CASE T was the last case of WORLD OF CARS plus the two from Kmart CARS Collector Days (Edwin Kranks & re-scaled Fred) which meant that Hamm and Stickers McQueen only numbered about 20,000 …

But then the WM endcap CASE W appeared (well, mostly appeared 🙁 ) with more Hamm’s and the first appearance of Lizzie … presuming that 3,000 WM’s got the full 108 (6 cases of CASE W) AND the re-stock of CASE W so that essentially matches the normal run of about 20,000 cases … (and it’s looking very likely there are a ton of them still in the backrooms).

But some of the CASE W contents are also being repeated on the WM November pallet (due anyday) – for completists, the question is whether the Edwin Kranks or Sally with Cone will be WOC or WOC: Race O Rama … if they are World of CARS, then that pretty explodes the theory any of the last WOC new releases will be fewer than 20,000 (including Sally with Cone, Dexter Hoover, Edwin Kranks, Tires McQueen & Re-scaled Fred).

But even if they do the big switchover and call it a day on WOC and it’s all Race O Rama, I think their very appearance so quickly on Race O Rama pretty much negates any price leap … because unlike the last switchover, it’s pretty clear that the production run on these CARS all are close to 20,000 and potentially could be much more or look at Spinout McQueen, even presuming his run on a WOC card is “only” 20,000 in CASE W, his immediate 20,000+ appearance again in CASE A pretty much negates any price runup since he is readily available to most buyers who are openers & or willing to trade a WOC version for a ROR version + any extra bonus a completist might throw in.

Same with Sally with Cone & Edwin Kranks are all coming again on the November pallet.

The Kmart Piston Cup Racer CARS? Now, they are not really “rare” in any sense, how many were available? It’s hard to know exactly but presuming about 2,000 Kmart’s participated and most seems to have gotten at least 10 CASES (the store I was at had 24 CASES) so it would seem 20,000 CASES might be too low of a guess – maybe 25,000 CASES and since there were two racers for each (and 3 Sputter Stops) … there might be 50,000 sets floating around out there? And clearly – prices right now reflect that – but Piston Cup racers are Piston Cup racers – Mattel treats them like the crown jewels of the series and we won’t see them randomly re-re-released so eventually as new collectors come on board, they’ll want a set of these on cards but there are probably more FULL sets of these available than the WM8 from from last year … so unlike Sally with Cone or even Dexter Hoover, the interest will always be there for the Piston Cup racers – I’m not promising they’ll be worth as much as the WM 8 but if you have the space to hang onto extra set, it will always be of interest to someone if nothing else but a trade.

* Originally Mattel’s secret production number for Stickers McQueen & Stickers Fred was 20,000 but even though CASE T was not shipped everywhere, I find it hard to believe there are only 20,000 Stickers Fred … and as for the new CHASE CARS, do they also “only” number 20,000? – hard to say … since while 20k of Stickers McQueen seems believable, the numbers seems to add up a lot more for Stickers Fred … but it’s probably correct for CASE A & B (and the CHASE CARS there), that the production number is around 20,000.

So in summary, it’s pretty safe to presume the Supercharged trio are the lowest “regular” production CARS sealed on a card because of circumstances. Adding to that is that Bob Cutlass will return on Race O Rama but was only in one shipment on WOC also. Dale Jr is of course, always popular and Mario has not shipped very often also so in addition to their low numbers, you have extra people chasing them just because … we will probably never know the real number since singles, boxes and master cartons were returned or the Supercharged cards destroyed … but they certain fall into the chase category.