TOPIC:

“Passion”. You’re “supposed” to have it in anything you do, whether it’s hobbies, showing how much you like the sound of you own voice on YouTube, or your job. Minimum wage, zero-hour contract at a fast-food joint or warehouse, sorry, “fulfilment centre” & your supposed to be “passionate about customer service”? Please. 

Any “passion” that wasn’t beaten out of me in childhood has certainly been worn away by the long slide into middle age, so the most I can work up is “some enthusiasm”, often short-lived, and at best, intermittent.



I’m sure I’ve extolled the virtues of the Matchbox brand before – possibly not so much the “1:matchbox scale” “Superfast” diecast vehicles (and stunt track) I had in my youth, but I know the “Superkings” larger scale diecasts have come up as I’ve used them as the basis for some (at least one, the Bedford TM skip truck) builds. 

I may or may not have mentioned their plastic kits – but they are where my “some enthusiasm” really lies. 


It’s worth mentioning the boxart – the very earliest were white boxes with full colour artwork, but unlike Tamiya were less technical & more “action” oriented – but often with a bit more subtlety than the Airfix or Revell artwork of the time. Weapons firing, explosions, fire, smoke, ships & planes going down weren’t the focus, but were often there on the fringes. Later issues either had the offending areas cropped off, or artfully painted over (and the occasional Swastika replaced with iron crosses or covered with a flag).
These middle era boxes where then replaced by the “sunset” scheme – black boxes with yellow, orange & red banding (yes, like a Hornet) with a “window” around the artwork. 

Nb It’s actually a bit more complicated than that, there are “type 1” to 7, then AMT boxes, then “dual company” boxes, but compared to the massive and ongoing range of Airfix packaging, Matchbox kit products seem a lot more definitive


The crossover point between the “safe” and sunset boxart was when I started to get really interested in them, the local post office stocking the smaller, less expensive kits meant I could get one on at least a monthly basis. 
I don’t know that I bought one of every 1:72 plane & 1:32 car kit they had over several years, but there were a lot of them. I always felt they were far superior to the ubiquitous Airfix kits - less warping, less flash, never any incompletely moulded parts, parts always still attached to the sprue, heavier, and although the detail seems to have been labelled heavy handed by many at the time, far superior to my mind. They also tended to be moulded in multiple colours, where Airfix were all grey. 


Revell (who later bought Matchbox) were & still are superior to Airfix IMO. I honestly feel that the Matchbox Kits were right up there with Tamiya quality – though obviously very much simpler.   They were also more accessible for me, anything Tamiya would have meant a trip to the nearest town, or more likely 3 towns over. 


Cost also came into it – I think the only Tamiya thing I had before saving up pocket money, combining Christmas and birthday presents, and working odd jobs to get a Grasshopper (and being disgusted my dad wouldn’t loan me the extra 5 GBP for the Hornet ) was a 1:35 sandbag set - because it was the cheapest thing & I was fascinated by the boxart, not because I had a real use for it.




Way before all of that though, was my first kit. It was just before Christmas 1976, and by todays’ standards it was a questionable gift for a 4-year-old, as was being left alone with a scalpel age (after having its use demonstrated on one part and being supervised for the 2nd).

It was a WW2 tank, i.e. not a mobile gun, half-track, armoured car, something more modern, or earlier. Despite the size of the box, it built up into a tiny, but detailed model, so I believe the scale was 1:76 (HO scale). 

It had a display base, possibly some sort of battle distressed street scene, and the plastic parts were in 2 different (but bland) colours – those last two things meant it must have been a Matchbox kit.

I distinctly remember it having grey, semi-rubber like tracks in strips, and the underside of the hull had a distinctive shape.

I don’t remember the boxart, other than it being, broadly speaking, in “camouflage” colours.


Some that is a bit vague, if I knew I was going to have to rely on my memory some 50 years later I might have paid more attention




Matchbox were quite prolific in their day but weren’t very long-lived (although a lot of their tooling lives on as Revell reissues. This means that while they produced new tooling for 27 small scale military vehicles (as well as others) between 1974 and 1976, that’s all there are to look at. None of them jumped out at me as being the right one. 

Even making substantial efforts to quantify how “nearly right” each option felt (my matrix column titles were Year, Brand ubiquity, Country, Era, Boxart, Box Format, Vehicle Form, Display Base presence & type, Track colours, moulding colours, and current cost (because I don’t mind getting it wrong, but I do mind getting it wrong & paying a fortune for it ), and including all the Airfix candidates from 1969 to 1978 failed show a clear winner.


Of all the possibilities, the most likely (75%) is the Soviet T.34 (www.scalemates....34--130352), the 1976 edition with sand and beige coloured plastic – and not the blue & white moulded (!) version from 1988, which is all I can find unbuilt at the moment.  


 

Something I couldn’t have afforded when they were first released (1978 to 1981) was the 7 “giant” Matchbox 1:32 aero kits.

I knew I had the Westland Lysander (PK-504) & an Me Bf/109 (PK-502), and was pretty sure I had a Spitfire Mk.22/24 PK-501) in storage, but on tracking down the package & cutting open the black clingwrap, found I also had a De Havilland Tiger Moth (PK-505) as well. This surprise prompted me to try to complete my “collection”. 


I found the 6th model in the series (and my 5th) – the De Havilland Sea Venom FAW 22 (a version called the “Aquilon” was also built under license & used by the French Navy, a version numbered FAW 53 was also used in Australia). 

Whereas the “PK-” prefix means a model is the original issue (1979 to 81), the 40- prefix on my Sea Venom means it’s a 1990s reissue. That information is out there (just not very clear until you already know it – and not in any of my reference books – but it meant I got a cleaner box & at a lower price than I might otherwise have paid. If it is a mistake, it’s not one I’m in any great rush to correct.  


I can’t remember which one came covered in the old Isle of Man stamps, but I obviously felt it was notable & kept that part of the box. This is something that’s really changed in my lifetime: colourful, interesting and unused stamps used to be well worth collecting, even if they were never likely to become valuable. A slough of stamps like this – even used – would have been a big deal well into the 1970s, prompting an afternoon of careful peeling, soaking, drying, and placing into albums on those little paper “hinges”
Now though, the value in even a big stamp collection is in using anything unfranked for your regular postage needs, and maybe a very rare payday on finding something genuinely still rare & valuable.


… all this were fields when I was a lad …

I also bought a Douglas Dauntless (PK-503) recently, but it was “lost” by courier Hermes. I found another one that appears complete & sound (although the transfers are a little suspect), but had to pay quite a heavy (40%) Covid era premium. I could have got one with a much rougher box, part built, damaged transfers, or even wait in the hope that something better and cheaper to turn up. Like a lot of “vintage” hobby items, prices only seem to go up & availability go down, so I made the choice to get this one, and now.



The Aerospatiale/Westland Puma chopper (PK-507) is the one I was least interested in, and I seriously questioned whether I could call my collection “complete” without it. A whirlybird is quite different from a fixed wing aircraft after all, and it would probably mean an asymmetric stack on my shelves

It was also the most expensive vintage purchase of the series- and that’s been the case for a long time. I can only think it wasn’t a big seller back in the day, because I can’t see that it’s particularly desirable now. It cost me as much as any two (or three) of the others, but this was actually a pretty good buy (half the price I’ve seen some up at) because of the faded & rather wonky box top.  



I know I complain about both space & cash, but these take up only a little more room than any NIB vintage Tamiya RC car kit – and _way_ less money – for 7 times the box art.   At the moment I’m just enjoying ownership of them as they are, however none are particularly minty, and I have thought there’ll come a time when I might not have the resources, space, or inclination to carry on with RC cars – and might want to build these (and similar models) instead. 

All of them (apart from the Me 109) have been reissued by Revell, sometimes multiple times with different paint schemes, so perhaps they are better candidates – but that modern, grey plastic doesn’t have the same feel as the older, multicoloured mouldings. Those replacement kits are often no cheaper, and sometimes more expensive than the vintage ones anyway.

I saw  Matchbox"maquettes" but never own one. But I had and still have some die cast when was a child. And refound one last weeks a tiny pick-up hotwheels scale. It was majorette and hotwheels équivalent toys. My favorite is still the yellow dodge challenger.

I have only built a few planes in my time, and I do own most of them.
Do to my age, my first kits were never painted, just assembled.
Some of them could have been put together with less glue to put it like that lol.

I do know for the fact that I have at least put together 2 kits by Matchbox, one is the 1/32 Mercedes SSKL and Porsche 935.
The first one I have actually picture off me building it over Christmas 85' or 86' or so.

Boxart of Matchbox's is really good.

I still have the Porsche, but no boxes.
The Porsche has a lot of glue on it. I may restore it later or get another one to build

I have never built a Tamiya model kit, but I've found both Revell and Hagesawa to be exelent.
Think they share some models too, like the VW T1 split bus.

My best atempt to build a kit was this Minolta Toyota by Hazegawa.
Think I was around 15 when I built that.

I have 2 planes and one helicopter.
I don't remember which brand they were.
Remember the helicopter was a yellow Swizz ambulance one on the cover.

This has wings that swings back.

As a kid I used to collect Matchbox cars as well.
Until that day someone drove over nearly my whole collection by their long wheelbase Patrol.
I had parked along the side the road by the house of my aunty and their neighbour drove right over them.
My aunt did nothing to contact who did that as they lived the house next door up the hill.
Think my aunt hated me.
But I actually found some of the non Matchbox cars when I moved and had a clean up of my boxes (still have them).
Recently I have been watching restoring videos of Matchbox cars for some reason.


Great thread JR 

Not sure what that prop monoplane is (30s Boeing?), but it does look like you put it together with bath sealant

Lol yes.
Humbrol tube glue do not age well it seems..
No idea why it seems to be that much glue on it to be honest.