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I felt I had to put that title in bold and caps because I think doorwarmers around the nation should not have to continually defend themselves to anyone ever again!  Okay, that’s a bit strong but this is something I feel I need to take a stand on, for you see I was/am an off and on doorwarmer for many years.

I think doorwarmer is one of the most maligned and misunderstood words in the diecast community.  It inevitably brings with it synonyms of scalper, hoarder, or jerk.  While it’s true there are a few unsavory people who doorwarm in a less than honorable manner, I have found that a great majority of people who doorwarm buy for themselves or their fellow collectors in their circle. 

Whenever I am with a group of friends who don’t collect and the topic of my hobby comes up, I have used the term doorwarmer [just in passing] and the universal reaction to everyone else in the room to this foreign sounding compound word was/is a collective “HUH????” It then took/will take me ten minutes to explain what a doorwarmer is and then explain it again after I get the next universal reaction of “Really, there are people who do that?”  Then I get “the look” from everyone like I am crazy for standing in front of a store before it opens to buy little cars but I explain that its is really no different then when people used to begin to stand in line at 5am to buy concert tickets [is that still done?] or go to Wal-Mart/WM at 4am on Black Friday to but a cheap computer that may or may not be in stock when they eventually get inside. I wouldn’t even do that.

I said before I was/am an off and on doorwarmer. This is because throughout the years there have been times when I have been either very near a store on my morning work commute or out of work and had the ability to hit the stores when they open during the week or weekend. When I had the chance I would go each morning and hunt for the newest cars. I am not ashamed of the fact I was/am a doorwarmer. I was able to find the newest cars fast and I was able to send/sell the extra I found to any of my friends that needed them.  Plus I made some great contacts along the way; and now that I am working again, these people still look out for me and we help each other find new cars. My mini network runs from NH to NJ to MD to NC; we all help each other and sell for retail price.

I didn’t really get into doorwarming until 1995. Until then I went to stores but never really as they opened. In 1995 I moved to Jacksonville FL for my job… [Shout out to anyone in Jax Beach, Ponte Vedra or Southside WOOOO!].

When I initially lived in Ponte Vedra, there was a Target only five minutes from my apartment but I never stopped early even though I had the opportunity to do so.  I just didn’t think it would matter.  But near my job was a Toy R Us/TRU and Target so I would go there at lunch and hunt. I started seeing the same guy almost every time I went. 

After a while of seeing that he was just looking at cars like me and not sneaking around; I started talking hobby with him and he turned out to be a pretty decent guy.  A few days later he told me he found some new cars at Target that morning and wanted to know if I needed anything and lo and behold I bought almost the whole bag and inquired how he could go there so early and still get to work.  He said WM opened at 7am and Target at 8am so he got up early and scooped up all the stuff put out by the night crew.  I was fascinated by this; night crews put stuff out before the store opens!!!  [Okay I was a little naïve]. So the very next morning I got up early to hit the Target right by my house and I found two Duesenberg treasure hunts!  It was like the heavens opened up and I was seeing daylight for the first time! I was hooked! I did this every morning and found some great stuff and soon began to trade with my new collector buddy!  I even sent stuff back to my friends in NJ.

On weekends it was worse, I would get up early to hit WM at 7am, Target at 8am, TRU at 9am, and a second WM after TRU and I was finding great stuff.

My new collector friend would also talk about other people he saw in the mornings and call them by names like “Fleaboy” and “FoMoCo”.  He explained why he called these guys those names, “Fleaboy” because he flipped at the local flea market, “FoMoCo” because he only collected Ford cars etc etc.  I began to find other collectors in the area knew these guys by these names as well.  My friend’s nickname was “Neptune Steve” because he lived in Neptune Beach and my nickname soon became “Hot Wheel Joe” because I had found a HW sticker in an auto parts stores and stuck it to my car’s rear window.  This name has followed me to this day.

After six months in Ponte Vedra, I moved to the Southside section of Jacksonville only five blocks from my job with my lunchtime Target smack in the middle of my short commute.  It was a no brainer. I’d get up early to hit Target at 8am and still make it work for 830am, then hit it again at lunch along with TRU and then again on the way home.  This strategy worked well and I was hitting more and more new stuff.  Soon everywhere I would go that required morning travel I would look to see if a store was on the way and leave early to hit it when it opened.  I kept this pace up until 1997 when I moved back to NJ with the same company.  In NJ it was tougher to do this since we had no Targets or WM in my area at that time and no K-MART/KM along my route to work; TRU opened too late.  So I just hit KM and TRU on weekend mornings.  In 2002 I was laid off from work, my wife had a great job so I was able to take some time off and I began to doorwarm everyday again.  Target and WM had finally come to my area of NJ by this time and I began to hit them every morning with a vengeance along with TRU and KM of course!  I would see them same cast of characters each time. 

Eventually I became friendly with a few and found out they had nicknames for other doorwarmers just like in FL.  One in particular became a great friend; his nickname was “Quaker Oats” because he looked like Wilfred Brimley from the commercials then airing on TV. His real name was Rich Intveld.  Rich was in his late fifties and working disabled due to his health.

He had emphysema and smoked like a chimney but he and I formed a great alliance.  So good was our alliance that eventually we would hit different stores in the morning, call each other on our cell phones and meet up afterwards to trade up.  We would pull along side each in a store lot, driver’s windows facing each other and exchange plastic bags.  We always joked that it looked like a drug deal going down.  He truly became like another Dad to me.

Even when I went back to work a year later, Rich would continue to go to stores every morning and call me at work with what he found for us.  At the very least he would leave one of his to the point messages like; “Joe, Target. Loaded. New stuff. Talk to you later.” Even if others were at the store when he hit, nothing would be traded until I saw it first.  It was like a mini diecast shop in the back of his SUV.  We would still meet up on weekends when I was off and doorwarm together.  By 2005 he couldn’t walk to the back of the store anymore and would have to use the motorized scooter. So if others were there I would huff it to the toy department with them to grab what I could and split it up with Rich later, but if it was just he and I would just walk alongside him.  This went on until Rich passed away in August 2006.  To his day when I see the front handicapped parking spot at our local Target I see Rich’s truck.  But another good friend emerged from my alliance with Rich.  Before he passed away, he became friends with a guy named Jay.  Rich said Jay was like me, very fair and always looked out for him.  I began to see Jay on weekends and it turned out Rich was right, Jay was a very fair and honest collector.  He began to hold cars for me that he found during the week and we would look together on the weekend.  In 2008 I was laid off again, this time it was to last two LONG years but my alliance with Jay grew and now that I am back to work in 2010, he still looks out for me everyday.

Throughout all these years I have met some wonderful people/collectors at the doors of stores [too many in fact to mention here] and some not so nice characters; but my point is that we should stop generalizing collectors who doorwarm. They aren’t all hoarders, flippers, or scalpers. Stop calling them all out on chat rooms, it just makes you look like a crybaby because you don’t get the cars first or shifting focus from yourself; “He doth protest too much” comes to mind.  We all know they exist; we all have them where we live, so stop whining about them.  Just don’t trade with them and eventually they will dry up and move along, they always do no matter how long it takes.  Some of us are so prejudice against doorwarmers maybe we’re not even trying to connect with someone outside our little circle and maybe missing a great opportunity to make a collecting contact. Let me know what you think about doorwarmers and doorwarming in general.  Do you agree with me or have another point of view?

I definitely want to hear from you; good or bad.

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