HWCC23 Collectors case review

The HWCC23 collectors case is a case designed to store up 40 castings of 1:64 scale. The case itself is made of black matte plastic, with transparent front doors, a retractable handle and the ability to be hanged on the wall.

The case allows three storage options - holding 40 bare castings or 30 in blisters or 30 castings inside the two pieces of protective foam inside special cut-outs. At the time of writing the pricing was around $70.

The case seems to not being made by Mattel itself, rather a 3rd party company called Intek is licensed for that matter.

The case is 70cm wide, 25cm high (with handle hidden), and roughly 5cm deep without feet base and 14cm with feet base installed.

What's in the box

• the case itself
• two protective foam inserts
• two retractable feet bases
• ten pieces of plastic sheets to make up the shelves (5 shelves per section)

Overview

The case is a two-section storage box with two transparent doors. Each section is a 5 level shelf which can fit 4 casting per shelf, totaling 20 pieces of bare (without blisters) collectibles per section. 

The doors, out of the box, are covered in plastic wrapping. The inner back of the case contains the HotWheels logo. Also there's another small logo on the left door outside, bottom left corner. The case is intended for castings of 1:64 scale.

The main advantage of this case is that it can accommodate castings that are generally larger than regular ones, that do not fit into the HWCC8C (blue) boxes. It can easily fit casting of off-road vehicles, certain trucks and wider than usual castings (like the Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech JBL57 casting). It won't fit the large team transport models, like the Fleet Flyer JHX89, though.

The doors locking approach is worth noting as it performs in a rather simplistic way, with a small bump pin that holds the door closed. Definitely it wont last long enough if opened and closed frequently. 

The shelves inside the case, that hold the castings, lack any vertical braces. So once these are filled, the contents can easily roll inside left and right during transportation. The shelves surface has ribbing, however this doesn't help much.

The case has two foam inserts that can provide additional protection to most valuable castings and aid transportation. But when using these, the case capacity drops to 30 items. To use the foam inserts, the shelves must be removed and replaced with the foam inserts. Not a truly convenient experience. More to say is that these foam pieces have identical cut-outs, whose shape is limiting to what can be stored in them.

Some concerns

Even-though the case has a foldable arm, the best fit for this case is hanging in on a wall for showcasing, rather transporting from place to place. There's also some quality concerns as plastic artifacts come up on the front transparent doors that are easily noticeable. The plastic itself that the case is made of - both for the frame or the shelves or the doors - feels somewhat soft and should be handled with care.

The defects shown above are not just one-case scenario - in three attempts all of them had same issue. The transparent plastic doors also easily attract any possible dust particles.

Verdict

The case itself is an okay showcase thing if the final goal is hanging it on the wall and rarely opening it. It fits the majority from the variety of HotWheels casting sizes (in 1:64 scale, off-course) and it is a nice addition to store and show-off your collection. It differs heavily in style and quality from HWCC8C storage boxes, but it's a nice alternative anyway. If one can live with rather cheap, soft plastic and minor mold artifacts - it certainly does it's thing. The only trade-off here is the price, as it somewhat on the expensive side that doesn't deliver the full price/quality ratio.

Pros:

• looks okay
• can be hanged and stacks nicely when multiple units are used
• transparent doors
• modding capabilities - some LED's can be added for some nice lighting effect

Cons:

• rather expensive
• soft plastic
• no vertical bracing
• minor quality concerns