opinions on opened sets

[jonj]

evening,

looking to pick some brains around what fellow collectors would class as a complete open set,

i am an opener and would say i have 95% of whats officially been released for cars 2, now heres the brain picking part. I try to display my cars in groups so singles, movie moments/twin packs, deluxes and then variants and exclusives all go together.


example: i just opened my new miguel MM so would you just put the new crew chief in or both cars to keep the collection complete as thats how they have come from the factory, i already have a miguel in the singles section of my collection

So to sum up would you class a complete set everything that has been released or is it ok to be missing the duplicates

[cac1959]

I can't speak for everyone, jonj, but as I've arranged my openers, I put the crew chiefs with the racers... and have replaced 2 piece racers with unibody (one piece) racers in the display case... the old one piece went into the "play with".

I distinguish between metallic paint Cars, silver series Cars, rubber tire racers, and regular racers with plastic tires...

Going back to Cars, I consider Doc Hudson, Dirt Track Doc Hudson, Fabulous Hudson Hornet with chrome wheels, Fabulous Hudson Hornet with red wheels, and Pit Crew Fabulous Hudson Hornet to be 5 different Cars... I think my opened Doc Hudson is from the Supercharged series - I'm not going to open ones from the Desert Back series and/or the World of Cars series or from boxed sets... Same goes for Mater - Desert Back and Supercharged Mater were a lot heavier than WOC and ROR and Final Lap Mater - I'm not going to open one from each cardback series.

How you want to open and display your collection is up to you... I gave up a long time ago on using the term complete - it's easy for Mattel to bring out new variants (variations) of Cars... and every so often I may move Cars around in the display cases... and as far as carded Cars go, I have a set of DB12 (desert back 12) and DB16 (desert back 16) but I drew the line at having every Fillmore/Filmore combination (there are 5) or trying to get each desert back version of Lizzie with and without the Ford logo... I'd have too many Cars (and my wife would tell you that I do).

Looking forward to seeing your collection photos, including the new Miguel Camino Crew Chief.

[djjd21]

i have them as i have opened them,like you've done yourself,so i would keep miguel with his crew chief,that's the way i've been able to document a few variations in cars as without this way i would'nt know what version was found where.

[jonj]

cac1959,

thanks for the quick reply, i like yourself would class all the docs different so would all be opened, but due to already having the racers open and not being a variant, as a completist should i put the movie moment racer in aswell

[DeceptiCog72283]

I am unsure as to how I would arrange mine. I consider a set complete when the characters are completed I guess or major differences collected.

As cac1959 mentioned, silver racers, rubber tires and so on are seperate "collections".

The crew chief/racer debacle on my side would be alot more like cac1959 again. I would keep him with the racer. The racer would be the better of the ones you have (preferably unibody lol)

I would put the racer up front with the crew chief slightly behind and to the side (left or right is up to you. Mine would be on the right lol)

[jonj]

this i my current set up, need another riser as carla is a little to big so need another to level them up

[DeceptiCog72283]

very nice setup.

I can only say that I am quite jealous of this! All those lemons and those "little" cars is just too awesome!

Which crew chiefs are still to find some form of MATTEL release?

Mach Matsuo?
Bruce Boxmann?
Otto Bonn?

If I'm not mistaken both Bruno Motoreau and Austin Littleton have seen mattel releases?

[jonj]

You are correct in the ones in missing, I will be purchasing them next just looking for the right deal on them, the only other movie moment is the new miles one

[wintermelon]

As far as i know, Austin Littleton suppose to be a Target release but currently it is only available via backdoor. lovemini had also reported that it is available as a 2 pack.

No news on Mach Matsuo and Bruce Boxmann.
I know a friend already got his Otto Bonn via backdoor. So Otto actually exist

My definition of complete open set is you must have all the characters that have been officially released by Mattel and including major variants.

I would exclude "non distinguish" variants from the list.
For example You the Bomb Mater with and without team 95 logo.

Under my perspective, the one piece or two piece is a non distinguish variant. However, i like cars being one piece so end up i am trying to recollect all the cars again

As for display, i prefer to display them as a theme. I tend to change my display from time to time.
This will keep me busy and make sure collecting cars will be fun. Sometimes i create a mini diorama by grouping certain cars together.
In my opinion, display is not about displaying how many cars you have but is about how to have fun and prolong our enthusiasm on collecting these cars. (Mattel surely had killed 95% of my enthusiasm over the past 4-6 months).