Matchbox lesney

[Eric Macleod]

Anybody else interested in Matchbox cars? I am working on getting the entire set 1-75 from the first edition 1969 catalog together.  Here is the start.  Inside every box is an additional MIB car.Not the greatest photos but there is a lot for the camera to focus on here.

[High octane]

Nice collection Eric, but I thought that Matchbox cars came out earlier then 1969, or am I mistaken?

[Dave Van]

I had many of those.......but when Hot Wheels came along....we destroyed most of the Matchbox. 

I was a Hot Wheels test kid......spent a day 'playing' with then unknown Hot Wheels and was paid with a bunch of cars and track before they were in stores....so I was lured away from the MBX....too bad...wish I had them now!!!  Nice collection!

[chunkypeanutbutter]

I've got quite a few, about $300 worth.

[Greg Myers]

I know living in England '57-'61 we had a bunch.  But just the same, nice start. 

Edited December 4, 2015 by Greg Myers

[BubbaJoe]

I'm a huge fan of lesney matchbox. I have a fair collection  i also collect tootsietoy, corgi, imply, london and  a few other manufactures. matchbox first started in 1953 as an offshoot of a bristish die cast company. their first issue was the Queens coronation coach . one of the original founders ,i think his name was jack odel made a small version of their companies road roller for his daughter to bring to school. she could only bring a toy to school if it could fit into a matchbox. 

[Greg Myers]

and the rest is history  

[62pyro]

Nice collection.I had a good share of those growing up.Wish I still did.

[AzTom]

Nice collection.

I have a bunch of them also. Never thought about getting the whole series but it's a good idea.

[Greg Myers]

I remember when my son was little, he had a bunch of Transformers. I was talking to him about them and discovered he was just shy of having them all, about 28 or 29. I suggest we visit the toy store to see if we could finish off his "collection".

Upon arriving,to my surprise, the second "Set" was just released. Nope, wasn't going to get sucked into that one, sorry Brad.

He went on to collect "baseball cards.

For awhile. 

[Junkman]

I still have pretty much all of the Matchboxes I had as a kid, as well as my Corgies and Dinkies. They are far from mint, though.
Restored a few Corgies and gave them to my daughters to play with. Once they are done, I'll restore them again and give them to potential grandchildren to play with.
That'll make it three generations playing with the same toys. So much for consume/obey/conform.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Junkman

[Eric Macleod]

I have two collections,  one for display and another for my girls to play with.  One day they can divide up the display cars and decide what they want to do with them. 

[Phirewriter]

Nice collection!! I really enjoy seeing cool collections like this. I too have most of the Matchbox cars I grew up with. Both 1 - 75 series, some Super fast and quite a few Y series ( Models of Yesteryear) My father was a causal Matchbox collector and thanks to him I now have quite a few MIB cars across the range, plus catalogs and a number of store displays. I also collect Superking and Speedkings plus various Corgis and have a sizable collection of pre - 73 Hot Wheels.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Phirewriter

[junkyardjeff]

The ones that survived me playing with them are not even close to being in mint condition and  starting to restore them and add more detail,once I got a computer and found ebay I started buying real nice ones and started buying the older gray wheels that I never had.

[Eric Macleod]

It is indeed another rabbit hole in terms of collecting.  My goal today is to just get all 75 mint with boxes.  That is proving neither cheap nor easy. I too have restored and added details to a couple of mine.

[junkyardjeff]

Over the last few years I have been getting the kingsized versions since I never got any when I was a kid, for unknown reasons I got some Corgi and Dinky cars for my birthday and christmas but never got any of the larger matchboxes.

[peteski]

When I was growing up in Poland in the 70s we mostly had Matchbox models (and of course the various models from the Eastern Bloc countries).  I did encounter few Hot Wheels cars but they always looked odd to me.  Now as an adult I can clearly see that most (but not all) Matchbox cars of that era were nicely-proportioned scale models of real vehicles, where Hot Wheels were more of a whimsical fantasy automobiles rather than scale models of the real vehicles.

When I emigrated from Poland I sold all my diecast cars.  But I have since then rebuilt some of my collection and even added models which attracted me as an adult.  I like to mention that Tomy diecast cars also depict rather well-proportioned scale replicas of real vehicles. I also have several Tomy models in my collection.  I addition, I have several Matchbox Super Kings which are mostly diecast models of larger trucks which are close in scale to the standard Matchbox passenger vehicles.  Most of those are fantasy vehicles (they look very futuristic), but there are few (like the gasoline tankers) which look like real trucks.

[Eric Macleod]

Perezky you evil man. I just looked up Tomy cars. You are correct.  Those are very nicely done and would look great as an addition to my Matchbox collection.  More to buy I guess! 

[peteski]

Perezky you evil man. I just looked up Tomy cars. You are correct.  Those are very nicely done and would look great as an addition to my Matchbox collection.  More to buy I guess! 

LOL!  They are nice!  Some not as well proportioned as original Matchbox ones, but they have nice paint jobs and most have operating features.

[AzTom]

It's never ending,lol  Tomy sold a line of Tomica and Tomy Pocket Cars.  Now the Johnny Lightning cars are in the Tomy brand also. 

[Art Anderson]

It's never ending,lol  Tomy sold a line of Tomica and Tomy Pocket Cars.  Now the Johnny Lightning cars are in the Tomy brand also. 

Not any more!   Tom Lowe, owner of Round2 (and founder of the former Playing Mantis, maker of Johnny Lightning toy cars from 1992-2004)  bought back the entire line of Johnny Lightning 1/64 scale diecast tooling from TOMY in early fall, there are now JL cars back in stores! (JL cars were also produced by RC-2/Learning Curve for several years before they were bought out by TOMY as well)

Art

[Greg Myers]

The Tomy cars really had some nice detail. I got a bunch back in the day when I was in the navy in Japan, early '70's.