Warbird Information Exchange

Cleaning out mother-in-law's basement and came across 38 Matchbox cars in their original boxes. (Belonged to Mrs. Mudge's brother.)
They seem to be up to 45 years old but I have no way of knowing. If you know anything about these things, PM me and I'll send you a list of what I have. Maybe you can tell me if they're worth anything.

Mudge the curious

_________________
Land of the free because of the brave

Mudge,

I'm not into Matchbox but I do collect their American counterpart, Hot Wheels. Ebay has an entire Matchbox section and I would advise going there to research values. There are also several books on the market. The three 'C's with these count. Casting -(What car?) Color. (Some castings in a ceratain color are rarer than other colors.) Condition. A rare casting in lousy condition may still be of more value than a mint common casting in a common color. Just try your best to compare apples to apples when researching ebay. Best of luck!

_________________
Cheers,

Craig

Facebook Groups:

U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky HRS / CH-19 Helicopter Database
U.S. Coast Guard Sikorsky HO4S / HH-19 Helicopter Database

I have a few from my youth still boxed too. For an insight check up this website and convert to dollars.

http://www.uniquecollections.co.uk/showpage.ihtml?dept=90

_________________
If the first casualty of war is innocence, the second is sobriety - Hawkeye.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws - Plato.
Lies get halfway round the world before the truth has a chance to get it's pants on - Churchill
If you are going through he11 - keep going - Churchill

That's a question I never expected to see on a US site. I'd never considered the thought of them being exported to the States, although as there were a lot of American cars in the range it makes sense.

There's a shoe box around somewhere full of mine from 45 - 50+ years ago. The boxes are long gone, apparently I played with them instead of the cars as a rugrat so I never even got them.

A quick Google produced this http://www.fcarnahan.com/pg/clubs.html an overview of Matchbox clubs worldwide.

It's not been updated for a couple of years but there could be some leads there.

I don't think that Matchbox are exclusively British.

I mean, yes, they're made by Lesney in the UK, but I have loads and loads of them (In addition to Hot Wheels) from when I was a kid (70's-1983 or so).

Not an uncommon item in the US. Not uncommon at all....

_________________
Kevin Kearney
Vice President
Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation


C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org

There were a lot of Matchbox cars imported to the US over the years. I have a number of them, although not as old as Mudge's.

Walt

I loved my Matchbox cars!
I still have a handful of the early 60's ones, but my sister gave the rest to my nephew when I was away in college. Boy, was I upset when I found out!
I even had a couple of rare ones that go for big bucks now.
I really hated it when Matchbox went to the "Fast Wheels" styling in an attempt to compete with Hotwheels. I never bought any of those.
Jerry

_________________
"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

I wasn't too crazy about those wheels, either - they looked odd on my Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow; besides, my brother's Hot Wheels Silver Shadow would still beat it when we raced them...

_________________

All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)