Posted on 07/18/2013 2:24:10 PM PDT by nuconvert
This year marks the 60th anniversary of Matchbox die-cast models, which have gone from child's toys to collector's items.
I don’t like to boast, but by the time I was 10 years old I owned a fleet of Ferraris, a Lamborghini Countach and a Peugeot Paris-Dakar racer. Being a child, I would smash these motors into each other and then, at the end of a hard day’s driving, forgo the comfort of a dehumidified garage in preference to lobbing them all in an old ice-cream tub.
These old Matchbox cars survive to this day, tucked away in my parents’ loft awaiting the next generation to take them for a spin. However, this year there is another reason to blow the dust from them, for it marks the 60th anniversary of Matchbox.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Always think it’s cool when my elementary school aged Son and Daughter play with some of my old matchbox cars. My Son however has a giant collection - we got in the habit of always buying 2-3 him cars whenever we went to the store. And no surprise, he’s a car nut like I am.
I remember when Mattel had a big issue with employees stealing Hotwheels and pissed them off istituting all sorts of anti-theft measures.
Yep. I suspect the originator of the "Chevy Impala with JATO" urban legend got the idea from a favorite pursuit of mine - taping bottle rockets to Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.
I have a bunch in near mint condition.
Still have the original boxes for most.
Lots and lots of Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and G.I. Joe, and Big Jim. But the most valuable I’ve had was the jawa with vinyl cape. Extra large kick in the rear for me, please.
HotWheels!
explains where the band, Matchbox 20, got it’s name??
Slots had THEIR time too ... in the 60’s.
I still have about 40 of my old Hot Wheels from 1967-69. Also have some track. Some of them can be quite valuable.
Any household with a couple of boys in it during those years is usually good for as many as a dozen of those suckers in the yard when metal detecting. If I kept all of them (more often than not thrashed) I found I’d probably have a couple of 5 gallon buckets of them...
Actually surprised we didn’t scatter legos on the Ho Chi Minh trail in Vietnam, guess there must be something in the Geneva Convention about that... lol
My sister’s Barbies didn’t fare well against her misogynist brothers with gasoline, firecrackers and .22 shorts.
Just go buy a Tesla model 'S'. It's the same thing.
If I saved my baseball cards and matchboxes I’d be wealthy now.
But the BB cards sure sounded cool on the spokes.
Surprisingly, my kids weren’t big into Legos but they can inflict a bunch of pain too, regardless of nationality! ;-)
I gave away a whole box full of Matchbox and other toy vehicles to a friend’s grandson years ago. Kind of wish I’d kept them. I still have a box full of old HO scale slot cars in the attic though - wonder if they are worth anything? I even have some of the old Aurora vibrator slot cars that moved by a plate vibrated by a rod inside a coil which turned the back axle - very slowly and noisily I might add.
Pops has managed to keep NINE moving boxes of 40’s and 50’s Lionel train stuff. The locomotive is one of the rare ones.
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