Tuesday, April 9, 2002 | 8:31 a.m.
Matchbox facts and figures
Source: Matchbox
Golden anniversaries are a wonderful thing.
Sometimes they sneak up on us. Sometimes they make us think, "Can it really be that so many years have passed?"
Matchbox is 50 years old. Well, at least in name. The miniature-car manufacturer is technically older than that, having begun building die-cast model cars and trucks in the late '40s in England.
But it wasn't until 1952, when the company (then called Lesney) created a brass prototype of a small Road Roller (a truck that smoothed out the tar in the roads) and placed it in a matchbox-size container, that the Matchbox name and product were officially born.
A half-century and 3 billion die-cast vehicles later, Matchbox is the second-largest manufacturer of miniature cars and trucks in the United States.
Between Matchbox and Hot Wheels, the No. 1 maker of die-cast toy vehicles in the world, the two companies represent more than three-fourths of the total U.S. market.
Beyond the numbers, however, is the indelible impression the replica cars, trucks and utility vehicles have had on many children.
Shay Shaver, 14, an eighth grader at Leavitt Middle School, is just getting over his initial love for Matchbox cars.
Shaver began collecting the toys when he was 3.
"Most of the cars I first got, my mom gave to me. Some of them are 20 or 30 years old," he said.
His Matchbox collection now runs close to 500 cars so many, in fact, he rarely buys them anymore. "I had a ton of them, so I didn't need anymore," Shaver said.
Although, when he does purchase a new Matchbox toy, Shaver no longer takes it out and plays with it crashing the die-cast replica into walls as he did when he was younger. Now he leaves the car in its package and puts it away for safekeeping.
"One day, if they're worth a lot of money, I'll probably sell them and make some money," Shaver said.
Hot cars
Matchbox began as a casting business in 1947 in London by two school friends and former service men, Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith, shortly after World War II.
The Lesney company, named as an amalgam of the Smiths' first names, purchased government surplus die-casting machinery to make industrial products.
Jack Odell, a friend of the Smiths and a partner in the company, began making toys at the Matchbox plant on his own and, in 1952, created the original Matchbox series, which was sold to F.W. Woolworth stores throughout London.
The next year Odell began developing a line of miniature replicas -- the Aveling Barford Road Roller, the Muir Hill Site Dumper, the Cement Mixer and the Massey Harris Tractor -- in addition to larger toys.
The Matchbox series proved so successful that a year later the bigger toys were phased out.
Matchbox began focusing on its 1-75 series, meaning the 75 vehicles the company made annually. Two years later in 1954 and the cars made their way to the United States via a salesman from New York, Fred Bronner, who was given exclusive rights to distribute the cars.
Matchbox was a tremendous success across the Atlantic and faced no real competition among rival toy companies until Mattel introduced Hot Wheels in the late '60s.
Unlike Matchbox cars, whose tires didn't spin too fast, Hot Wheels were designed for speed and became an instant threat to Matchbox.
Matchbox responded with its own line of speedy cars in 1969, the Superfast line, which featured sportier cars and vehicles, such as Porsches and Corvettes.
This only served to intensify the rivalry between the miniature-toy companies.
By the early '80s, however, it was clear Hot Wheels was winning the war, and in 1982 Matchbox was purchased by a Hong Kong toy manufacturer, Universal International Holdings.
The company, renamed Universal Matchbox Group, was sold to Tyco Toys a decade later, which in turn was bought by Mattel in 1997. The acquisition of Matchbox by the maker of Hot Wheels worried many collectors. But the onetime rivals have maintained their separate identities, said Vince Smart, director of marketing for Matchbox, in Mt. Laurel, N.J.
The two companies target different buyers.
"Hot Wheels is a hot rod, whereas Matchbox is an everyday vehicle you would predominantly see on the street," he said. "Matchbox is for younger kids who want to role play and pretend they are the fireman or police. Hot Wheels is for the older kids, who are competitive and want to race against each other."
To honor its 50th anniversary, Matchbox plans to release its "Across America" collection of cars -- one for each state (Nevada's is an armored truck) -- as well as a special commemorative series available only this year, which is aimed at collectors.
The company is also on the road through August with a touring showcase, including hands-on displays and interactive exhibits, Matchbox-themed video games and a "Heroic City Obstacle Course," designed to bring to life the dreams of many children as they played with the cars. (There are no plans for the tour to stop in Las Vegas.)
Although Smart, 39, has only been with Matchbox for two years, the 50th anniversary still seems a little odd to him.
"Time flies," he said of the half-century the cars have been around.
Diehard for die cast
Time has slipped by for Everett Marshall.
The mayor of Newfield, N.J., the 52-year-old Marshall also happens to have the world's largest display of Matchbox toys in the world.
"In 1980, when the original Matchbox company went bankrupt, I decided to buy the entire set of 75 cars that year for my son, who was 3 years old at the time," Marshall said. "Twenty-seven thousand Matchbox cars later, I'm still collecting and my son has moved on with his life."
To say Marshall is passionate about Matchbox is an understatement.
When he learned that Matchbox often accidentally created variations within the 75 die-cast vehicles made yearly -- anything from the wrong tires and windshields, to upside-down numbers and differences in paint colors -- he found himself wanting to own them all.
"I got enthused by it," Marshall said. "And to tell you the truth, I don't know why. I guess I'm one of those obsessive-compulsive types. My wife is a therapist and she says I'm in denial."
As Marshall's collection continued to grow, he moved it from the basement of his home, to the three-car garage of his family owned trucking business.
"Now it's in a 30-by-70 (square-foot building), and it's almost too small," Marshall said.
The building, also in Newfield, doubles as both a museum and as a shop, where he sells Matchbox vehicles from his collection, which he estimates is approaching seven figures in total value.
He has such rare cars as the Red Vauxahaul, an English car he recently bid for that's worth thousands of dollars.
"Let's just say Regis Philbin would be very happy" with the net worth of his collection, Marshall said.
There is a good chance that at some point, one of the Matchbox cars Jackie Arnello has sold ended up in Marshall's collection.
Arnello, owner of Affordable Collectibles, 1655 E. Charleston Blvd., has been buying and selling Matchbox cars for the 35 years she has been in the antique business.
In the late-'60s and early-'70s both she and her late husband would fill a van full of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars and travel around California to antique shows.
After moving to Las Vegas nine years ago, Arnello opened her store, which, depending on inventory, features hundreds of Matchbox cars -- ranging from the first models made through 1997.
She said it is the older cars, which range in price from $15 to $135, that tend to be the most popular among the collectors.
"One 5-year-old boy comes in three times a year with his parents and he knows every kind of car," Arnello said.
So what is it about Matchbox cars that attract such devotion?
"I've heard it described (to me) ... that it was the perfect toy," Smart said.
Smart said it comes down to imagination, and with Matchbox a child can play with a fire engine, police car, tank or Volkswagen van and imagine himself the hero in a miniaturized make-believe world.
"We call them 'play patterns.' You have a Matchbox car and you have a completed play pattern, you don't need anything else to live out the scenario," he said. "And you can buy it for the change that's rattling around in your pocket. That's been true since the product was launched."
The price for the cars remains reasonable as well, hovering around $1 retail, compared to about 19 cents when the die-cast vehicles were first introduced.
About the only thing that has changed with Matchbox over the years is the age of those who buy them.
"We like to say (Matchbox) was a lot of Baby Boomers' first cars," he said. "And Baby Boomers are getting older."
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