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Hot Wheels Treasure Hunt And Super Treasure Hunt History

1995 Teasure Hunt Introduced
Treasure Hunt (sometimes called T-Hunt) is a line of Hot Wheels, introduced by Mattel in 1995 for the adult collector. It consisted of 12 cars every with one released per month or so until 2011. The original production run was 10,000 of each car worldwide; that number has since risen due to the increasing demand for and popularity of Hot Wheels as a collector's item.

1997 - 1999 Plastic wheels
Plastic wheels - All of the 1997 - 1999 treasure Hunts were produced with plastic wheels.

2000 Real Riders (rubber tires) are Back
List of the 2000 Treasure Hunts.

2005 Treasure Hunt 10th Anniversary

2007 Super Treasure Hunts first year
In 2007, Mattel introduced a two-tiered Treasure Hunt system. A regular Treasure Hunt will feature normal paint and normal plastic wheels like other Hot Wheels cars. The production of these is rumored to be greater numbers than previous T-Hunts with one per case.

The new "Super" Treasure Hunts are much harder to find, one per 12 to 13 cases. With 72 Hot Wheels in the case, that works out to about one treasure hunt per 1,000 Hot Wheels. A Super Treasure Hunt features premium real rider rubber wheels and Spectraflame paint. Many Hot Wheels collectors have noticed in recent years that the US Basic cases (mixes) are more likely to have a Super Treasure Hunt in them compared to International Cases (Mixes).

2011 Increased to 30 models per year 15 TH and 15 STH
Treasure Hunt and Super Treasure Hunt increase to 15 per year. One new model per case (mix) A through Q. Case letters I and O are not used because they look like one and zero. The 15 case letters are - A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, and Q. One "regular" (or hidden) treasure hunt per case and Super Treasure Hunt about one in every 12 cases.

2007 - 2011 Same Model Super and Regular
For five year, the treasure hunt and super treasure hunt were the same model vehicle. You can tell the difference between the two in several ways, including Spectraflame paint and Real Rider rubber tire on the SUPER. During this five year run the super treasure hunt as dollar signs for "S" as in "Trea$ure Hunt$".

2012
Hot Wheels stopped using the green bar on the card and start using different models between the Treasure Hunt and Super Treasure Hunt vehicles. The 2012 Super Treasure Hunt vehicles have the "TH" graphic on them.

Regular treasure hunt vehicles still had the green bar on the card and the words "treasure hunt '12" on the card. Many argue this was the end of the "regular" treasure hunts having any collector value.

2013
In 2013, Mattle stopped using the green bar on the regular treasure hunt cards and added the circle with a flame symbol somewhere on the vehicle to indicate it was the Treasure Hunt. The number license vehicles (real cars) began to decine in the regular treasure hunt line. The 2013 Super Treasure Hunt cars, on the other hand, featured many great licensed vehicle!

2014
Some U.S. releases in 2014 had the phrase, "This symbol on the vehicle lets you know it is hard to find and highly collectible."

2016
In 2016, the phrase was changed to "Congratulations! This symbol means you just found a collectible treasure-hunt car!". This would be under a silver flame logo on the card for T-Hunts, Supers featured a gold logo on the card.

2019
The flame circle symbol is on the vehicle and the card behind the car. The Silver symbol on the card is a treasure hunt and a gold symbol for a Super Treasure Hunt.

The Silver symbol on the card is a treasure hunt

2020 Treasure Hunt 25th Anniversary

 

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