My Matchbox Problem....

[thommo]

I may be drowning in nostalgia 🙄

 

 

[Alex Gordon]

Ah yes,I see.There are clearly far too few there to establish a breeding colony. 

[Wez]

Wow!

 

I think you could single handedly fill all of the 1/72 aircraft slots in the Matchbox 50th Anniversary GB, what do you think Pat? @JOCKNEY

[JOCKNEY]

Hi @thommo

You are very welcome to join the Matchbox GB here on BM, link above kindly supplied by @Wez

Although if you post those pictures we are going to need to sedate our GB guru @Enzo Matrix !

It would be brilliant if you would join us, and thank you so much for the trip down memory lane.

Cheers Pat 

 

[thommo]

You blokes are just making my problem worse 😄

[Toe]

Damn, had bought and built the Henschel, Sea Harrier, Skyhawk, Fury, Lysander, Dauphin (twice!) Buccaneer, Privateer, Tempest, that is just what I can make out too, plus drooling over the catalogue often just as I was coming up to a teenager, ah, good times that I bet nearly all of us would love to go back to!

Great stuff there, I'd be displaying them all on a shelf or a cabinet as the biggest reason for me buying the ones I made was purely the box art, love the Matchbox artistry

[thommo]

2 hours ago, JOCKNEY said:

Hi @thommo

You are very welcome to join the Matchbox GB here on BM, link above kindly supplied by @Wez

Although if you post those pictures we are going to need to sedate our GB guru @Enzo Matrix !

It would be brilliant if you would join us, and thank you so much for the trip down memory lane.

Cheers Pat 

 

 

So this GB starts in 2022?

 

I'm wavering!

 

I was trying to collect every single first issue version of the 1/72 aircraft.  I think I got about 50-60% of them, then the prices went crazy.  Haven't bought one for about 5yrs now.  But I may get back into collecting.

 

I've built several which I had duplicates of.

 

 

 

[psdavidson]

🤩 So many memories...

[HansReggelsen]

5 hours ago, psdavidson said:

🤩 So many memories...

Indeed! .....I built that, and that and that and that...... 

 

Worst thing is that seeing all those kits makes me want to build them again! 

Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end.....

 

Cheers 

Hans J

 

PS.....and that and that.....

[dogsbody]

My Matchbox stash:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris

[Pete F]

What is interesting is how the Matchbox box lids spark old memories and take me straight back to the kitchen table with a tube of glue or the model shop with a couple of coins to spend. I know it is false nostalgia but modern box art doesn't cut it the same for me.

[thommo]

1 hour ago, Pete F said:

What is interesting is how the Matchbox box lids spark old memories and take me straight back to the kitchen table with a tube of glue or the model shop with a couple of coins to spend. I know it is false nostalgia but modern box art doesn't cut it the same for me.

 

Agree 100%.  Matchbox still wins in the most engaging box art stakes.

 

I grew up in two small country towns (pops of about 400 & 1500) and the local newsagent was the only place that stocked model kits (only Airfix & Matchbox), glue, Humbrol paints and brushes....and rifles/ammo....and fishing tackle....and Playboy magazines (I never looked at those, honest 😄).

 

I'd spend ages looking at the Matchbox kits before choosing one.

 

I could also buy a box of bullets or a scope for my .22 rifle at the age of 12 😮.

 

Spent my childhood messing with glue & paints, roaming the bush with a fishing rod & rifle, and racing around on motorbikes and doing as little as possible at school.

 

However, in the words of SuperTramp.....

 

"But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible
Logical, oh responsible, practical
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable
Oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical".

 

Thankfully, I found modeling again....and fly-fishing....and triathlon....and mountain bikes (and hence titanium body repairs) so am reverting back to childhood, though have discovered in my 50's, I don't bounce like I used too when I hit the deck.

[dogsbody]

7 minutes ago, thommo said:

, though have discovered in my 50's, I don't bounce like I used too when I hit the deck.

 

Wait 'til your mid-60's! 

Not only do you not bounce, it's like this Bob Dylan song title: You Ain't Goin' Nowhere.

 

Except maybe either an ICU or the morgue!

 

 

 

 

Chris

[HansReggelsen]

10 hours ago, thommo said:

...and Playboy magazines (I never looked at those, honest 😄).

..of course not - who did!   (but first when I came of age! - Honestly! )

 

Cheers 

Hans J

[Julien]

On 08/08/2021 at 07:36, thommo said:

I may be drowning in nostalgia 🙄

 

If you are drowning in Matchbox kits I can send you my address to forward some on, It a service I offer to help those in need, philanthropic of me I know  

 

Got to love those MB kits, this was OOB with the addition only of the pitot and aerial wire, original decals mostly as well!

[Hook]

And... the problem is..?

 

Cheers,

 

Andre (whose first model was a Matchbox Harrier GR.1) 

[Mr T]

I remember buying the Matchbox Fury from the local newsagent when I came home for Easter at uni. Made it after my 1st year exams before coming home. It was finished in Munich period camouflage with the fuselage roundels carefully repainted, with a hand painted squadron badge and stretched sprue rigging. Not a bit of etch, resin or airbrushing.

Ee they were simpler days when tha could go and 'ave a slap up meal and go to cinema and then come' ome on't tram and still 'Ave change out of a shilling. Tell it to these young' uns today and they won't believe you, just 'cos it's  pack of lies. 

I moved north to Sheffield to start uni in 1972 and stayed in Yorkshire ever since. 

[thommo]

Going through my Matchbox stash last night, I have 70 out of 107 original issues, plus 17 duplicates.

 

There are some quite rare ones which hardly seem to pop up for sale, and which I don't have:

 

PK-39 Northrop F-5B , blackbox;

PK-52 BAC Sea Harrier FRS.1 ?????

PK-122 General Dynamics F-16A Thunderbirds original boxing?

PK-141 F117-A Stealthfighter – blackbox?

 

The boxing references are my description of the box types.  There were the original boxings with the coloured spots, then a sort of white boxing, then the sort of black boxing, then I think the Revell versions.  I never buy the Revell versions as they are repeats of the original versions.  And there are some versions from Hong Kong with instructions in Chinese.  And some special boxings which include glue.

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by thommo

[Hook]

Just from the top of my head, since I'm abroad at the moment - these Matchboxes are in my unbuilt stash / retirement plan:

 

- Supermarine Walrus

- PB4Y Privateer

- Canberra PR.9

- a few Do 28's

- a few Mystėre IV's

- HP Victor K.2

- Strikemaster (half built)

- Fiat G91Y

- F9F-4/5 Panther

- F-14A ( to be built as the first prototype)

- four Meteor night fighter putty queens

- a couple of He 70/170's

- Hawk 200

- F-101 Voodoo ( which will donate the recce nose parts to convert a RoG F-101B to a RF)

- 3 Lightning F.2A/6

- T-2 Buckeye

- F3D Skyknight

- UC-64 Norseman

- a pair of Twin Otters

- Dauphin 2

 

Some are in RoG boxes. 

 

Oh, and a RoG era Catalina, just for the Dutch markings, but that one doesn't count. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

 

[AWFK10]

13 hours ago, Mr T said:

I remember buying the Matchbox Fury from the local newsagent when I came home for Easter at uni. Made it after my 1st year exams before coming home. It was finished in Munich period camouflage with the fuselage roundels carefully repainted, with a hand painted squadron badge and stretched sprue rigging. Not a bit of etch, resin or airbrushing.

Ee they were simpler days when tha could go and 'ave a slap up meal and go to cinema and then come' ome on't tram and still 'Ave change out of a shilling. Tell it to these young' uns today and they won't believe you, just 'cos it's  pack of lies. 

I moved north to Sheffield to start uni in 1972 and stayed in Yorkshire ever since. 

I built the Matchbox Sea Harrier in my room at Tapton hall of residence towards the end of my first year at Sheffield University. It was 1982 and I bought it at Beatties on Pinstone Street as soon as it was released. It came out either during or very shortly after the Falklands war and the shop had a pile of them with a sign beside it: "Mirage killer! Skyhawk destroyer!".

I live in Yorkshire, too, only I travelled south to get here originally. I'm on my third tour in the county now and will be staying put this time. I've got quite a few Matchbox kits in the stash, especially their interwar RAF stuff, and built a Gladiator just a couple of months ago.

[Mr T]

I lived in Stephenson, which last time I was around there was still in use, although redeveloped. I moved to Leeds in 1981, but still occasionally came down to Sheffield and to IPMS branch meetings. I remember that Beatties well. 

[2996 Victor]

Hi thommo and everyone,

 

what a fantastic thread - its stirred so many, many wonderful memories!

 

I'm in my early fifties now (how did that happen and where did my forties go???) and I well remember my Dad, sadly now long since departed, sat in his armchair in the evening carefully building a kit. I was about four or five. He would do only one step each night, and I was under strict instructions to not touch! They were usually Matchbox, only very occasionally Airfix, and as he was a delivery driver at the time, I think he must have bought them while out on his round.

 

We had the first boxings of the Hawker Fury, Gloster Gladiator, Boeing P-12E, Beaufighter TF.X and others. Those are the ones I remember most clearly, and I'm happy to say they've survived the decades of being suspended from my childhood bedroom ceiling and latterly being boxed in the loft. They need a bit of TLC and resto work, to be honest.

 

My Dad was a wonderful man who passed on at far too young an age, and the memories and the nostalgia create such an ache in my heart.

 

I've been picking up a few Matchbox kits here and there, and I'm very much looking forward to the Matchbox 50 GB. But I'm also looking for some kits, ideally mint condition first boxings, as a nostalgia collection. The ones I've mentioned above, obviously, plus the Buffalo, Siskin, Corsair, Bf.110, and probably others: all ones that meant something special to me a child. There are some contemporary Airfix kits as well that I'd like to find.

 

Thanks again for sharing pics of your nostalgia stashes, chaps, its brilliant!

 

Cheers,

Mark

[thommo]

A few more built kit pics.  I wish I'd not built the Norseman because it was the only one I had.

 

Ditto the Lancaster, though I built that one Xmas holiday at the coast with my nephew (pictured) - he is now 21.

 

The Gladiator was done up as the 'Charity' aircraft from Malta WW2.  

 

I tend to add some scratchbuilt details to the Matchbox kits, esp. the cockpits.

 

 

 

[2996 Victor]

Hi thommo,

 

Three more superb builds there! I particularly like the Gladiator, but they're all excellent.

 

What era is the Lancaster kit? The only reason I ask is that my Dad built a Lancaster as one of his evening armchair builds when I was very young. I'd always assumed it was Airfix, but given that most of his kits were Matchbox, I wonder now if the Lanc is, too.

 

Kind regards,

Mark

[dogsbody]

Matchbox kits here: http://www.matchboxkits.org/

 

 

 

 

Chris