Mattel sells a lot of Barbie dolls for girls, but Dave Copenhaver's daughters wanted something else
Mattel sells a lot of Barbie dolls for girls, but Dave Copenhaver's daughters wanted something else from the toy maker -- Hot Wheels cars. That was nine years ago and today, although his daughters have lost interest in the cars, Copenhaver has made them his life.
"They got so many for Christmas and we'd play with them, and I wondered what it would take to collect these. I thought it would be an inexpensive habit. I said look, they're 99 cents, how bad could it be?" he said, smiling.
Copenhaver began collecting and selling die cast cars at flea markets between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. A year ago, he decided the traveling was too much and opened his own store, Diecast Central.
Copenhaver, who has between 8,000 and 9,000 cars in his private collection, knows collecting the cars isn't always an inexpensive hobby. He said the cars in his store range in price from 99 cents to $2,600. He said avid collectors are willing to spend that kind of money.
"Most customers that walk by or drive by really wouldn't know what this store is about, but you get a collector to drive by and they see that Hot Wheels logo and that's all they'd need. They would spin around and be back here in a heartbeat," Copenhaver said.
Specialized market
Copenhaver sells mostly Hot Wheels cars, but also some others, such as Johnny Lightning and Dub City. He said he is one of the few dealers in the world specializing in die-cast cars who is an authorized Mattel dealer.
"Mattel really doesn't want to sell Hot Wheels by themselves to any retail outlet. It's pretty much unheard of because Mattel is a huge company that sells Barbie and other things, but somehow we were able to do it and now we're running in uncharted waters," he said.
Hot Wheels are the only Mattel product he sells. Copenhaver said the bulk of his business comes from online sales. He said he has approximately 1,000 cars for auction on e-Bay every day. Business at the store picks up in the winter, he said.
"In this area, there's not much to do in the colder weather, so they start to collect. A lot of customers never miss a week; they're pretty avid," he said.
A few customers who are retired have a route that they run, visiting stores in Ohio and Pennsylvania to look for cars, he said.
Copenhaver said his biggest competition are large retail stores, but they can't offer what he does.
"They don't understand the collector aspect of it. They take a box [of cars] and dump it and it creases the packages and then you don't want it. Packages are everything today. They actually make a protector for the packaging, and that protector costs more than a regular issue car would," he said.