We have featured a few diecast car collections over the years, but this could be the largest stash of Matchbox brand stuff we’ve ever seen! The owner has been collecting for over 30 years and everything appears to still be in its original packaging. They are taking a strange approach by creating a listing here on eBay that mentions that they will be auctioning things off in lots soon.
It looks like someone turned their basement into Matchbox museum! Besides the large cases, there’s blister packs handing on the walls and surely even more that we can’t see. This is an impressive collection no doubt, but it looks like Snoopy is the only one willing to hang out down there with the curator…
Just kidding! I’d hang out with this car guy. There are gift sets, store displays, and individual cars. I’m not sure how hot the Matchbox market is, but I know that a large collection of vintage Hot Wheels and can worth some serious dough. Any Matchbox collectors here who can enlighten us?
I grew up with Matchbox and Dinky toys. Many fun hours. I watched them morph from simple die-casts with metal wheels to highly detailed and refined models. Wish I still had them….
I started with Matchbox, then Hot Wheels, Corgis & finally AF/X slot cars. Then air cooled VWs, then Chevys…..
I still have all of my played with Matchbox cars as well as some of my Hot Wheels and a few Cigar Box cars, and all of my AF/X cars. I even have my Hot Wheels Sizzler’s with three charging station and all of the Hot Wheels track. I just wish I’d kept some of the boxes! LOL
I used to go down to the TG&Y in Oxnard and buy one for 50 cents I think tax then brought it to a total of 53 cents. I also loved Dinky, Corgi, and Solido which made a really cool 1/43 61 Ford Thunderbird. Also liked Cigar Box cars they made a cool 1967 Galaxie.
My hang out was tg&y in Torrance. I bought alot of cars there.
Wow, that is a lot of cool value right there.
Like this person, I built up a large model car collection, mostly Matchbox, over several decades. I stopped adding to it about ten years ago and will eventually sell it off so I don’t leave my family with that task. I don’t know exactly how Matchbox prices have fared recently but I don’t imagine they have gone down, and this collection looks like it’s pretty darn valuable. Mint and boxed is as good as it gets, and that’s all I see here.
If you are going to ask $100,000 for any collection you need to have a detailed inventory and quality pictures. Some matchboxes are very valuable, he needs to demonstrate that in his listing.
Steve R
From the ad. ‘To clarify, this listing was to show what will be coming up over the next several weeks. If you really want the entire set, yes, it is for sale for the buy it now price, however, the real intent is to showcase what is coming up.’
Based just on what I can see, that $100K asking price might be realistic. A personal inspection would be a must though.
I have a nice collection of “greenlight mucle cars, mostly the ones I either wish I had, or ones I want to own. My woman has no idea why I do it.
It’s a fair question. Why do you do it?
If yo love cars and don’t have alot of money then collecting model cars is an affordable alternative. I don’t play with mine they are on a shelf in my garage
It is a constant source of amazement and amusement to me to see the things people would rather have than money. Yeah sure, I once spent my money and my time on little toy cars…………. But that was when I was eight. Being eight and playing with little toy cars was a lot of fun but all the little toy cars in the world won’t make any of us eight years old again.
And paying 40-50 grand for a 60’s-70’s muscle car won’t make us 20 years old again either. To each his own when it comes to collecting. Think about the feeling and enjoyment we get when coming across a “barnfind”…..it’s the thrill of the hunt and you can bet the owner of this collection has experienced that with a smile on his face more times than he could count. My 32 year old son, even after owning many cool cars gets more of a kick out of adding to his vast ( and I mean vast) collection of Hot Wheel and Dukes of Hazard.
When I was child back in the early 60s, Matchbox cars were 55 cents (the wheels were still gray plastic in those days) and they were way ahead of and much more coveted than the much more common (and way cheaper at 10 cents) Tootsie Toy die cast cars. And Derek is right about Cigar Box cars, I had the same 67 Galaxie. When ebay took off in the early 90s I bought a lot of the Matchbox cars I had as a child and the ones I wanted back then but couldn’t afford. Then I started buying duplicates and mint in box, seems like I was paying around $10, not sure what they go for now, have pretty much lost interest although still have that collection and my heirs can deal with it when the time comes. Anyway, what a great collection this guy put together.
People with money can buy what they like. Some buy toy cars, plastic models, and real cars to go with them. Working to pat yourself on the back with big bank balances is a waste of life, and buying a real car here won’t make you 18 again or increase your chances of getting laid, either. We do it because it’s FUN.
At my age, and with this ugly mug, the only thing that will increase my
chances of getting laid is a trip to Nevada.
I still have the catalog from an auction I attended back in May of 2011. The auctioneer started at 8AM sharp that Saturday morning, and with only four breaks throughout the day, he closed the last item at 3:30 AM that following Sunday morning. The auction was to pay gambling debts the guy had run up. Up for bid was a collection of over 7,500 model car and truck kits with a few aircraft and ships mixed dating back to the early 1950’s, and Matchbox vehicles still in the original boxes from the late 1950’s until the mid-1990’s. Hot Wheels from day one still in their packages. There were also Johnny Lightnings. Corgi. ERTL. The auction day started with a tray of 14 mint Hot Wheels and 11 bidders. Highest bidder was allowed to pick one vehicle. The first car went for $1540.00. Then the bidding started all over again for the remaining vehicles in the tray. Last car in the tray went for $400.00 . The bidding went on like that all day and into the next morning on the diecast and model kits. That auction I walked away with a truck load of kits. Well, there was another auction back February of this year for the same guy. Same problem gambling. And another building with hundreds of kits and diecast. This time, the auction was over by 6 that evening. I don’t know what they took in, but I was $$$ poorer when it was all over with.
“I’m not sure how hot the Matchbox market is, but I know that a large collection of vintage Hot Wheels and can worth some serious dough.”
Hot Wheels only date back to 1968 and were always made in Asia. This collection has cars significantly older than any Hot Wheels and are all made in England.
The problem with the value of a lot of Matchbox cars is that they were made in such mass for global sale. The original “Sweet 16” Hot Wheels are still the most value toy cars out there because Mattel didn’t expect them to be so popular, did not have many made and only sold them in the U.S.
The original Hot Wheels cars were made in the USA.
USA & Hong Kong for original Redlines from Mattel.
Even a fairly mundane model mint in box is worth best part of $50. Many are worth much much more.
That lot will soon add up.
I have traded in matchbox off and on over the last few years. Struggled to buy them right recently.
Last year I bought some from an auction that had a strange stamp on the boxes. Turned out they were staff sales examples. They would stamp them so it didn’t look like staff were helping themselves. Sold them for a very decent profit.
In the late 50’s there was a break in at the factory and a huge volume of the Morris Minor no. 46 was stolen making it a bit harder than some to find, especially in some colours.
When I was a kid I had a reasonable collection of Matchbox cars (about 350, almost all in their boxes). Slowly over a period of a couple of years my collection disappeared and I didn’t know why. Recently my youngest brother admitted that he used to take my cars out to dad’s workshop and play “car crash” with them. This involved either hitting them with a hammer or crushing them in the bench vise. He would then hide the remains in the rubbish bin and the garbage collector disposed of the evidence for him. No wonder my father always said that if my little brother had been the first child, he would have also been the last!
Just to bug me….my oldest brother would occasionally “shave” one wheel flat. My 64 yellow impala taxi never rolled right!
I feel your pain.
My brother had a 64 Impala convertible, so i painted my taxi white with a black top. Might not be a nice yellow taxi any more, but I’ll always remember the 64 convertible with the 409 dual 4 barrels!
I would have to take some out of the box for display. Looking at a box does nothing for me. Great collection.
My 1:64 Greenlight 1969 Plymouth GTX, Blue Fire with black on the bottom, is exactly like the one my friend and shift boss had years ago. He passed away too young, a long time ago, quite a far ways away from where I live now. They are keepers of memories and feeders of dreams. Now, where is my Greenlight 1968 Buick GS400 similar (different colour) to the one my older brother had new.
I have a large collection of Action Nascar 1:24.scale dicast cars in original boxes and 1:64 scale, Mostly Earnhardt. I would like to sell but i don’t know ware to start.
@Joel – Please consider getting your collection featured here on the site: https://barnfinds.com/sell/
Having very recently helped to sell a seriously large and detailed collection of model cars I learned a few things. Collectors like to collect, they do not, as a rule, buy large collections for huge money. The value is in breaking up the collection. Which for the collector selling, so painful that most are unwilling to do it. Preferring to wait until they are gone and leaving that task to someone else.
I bought my first Matchbox car,a 1959 Chevy Impala,
Light Blue,with Gray wheels.I remember my Dad was mad because
I paid 59 cents for it.
To angliagt: funny about your father being mad about you spending 59 cents on a ‘stupid toy. Do you know how long it takes for me to earn that kind of money??? You don’t know the value of money!!’ (Oops sorry – channeling my steelworker father’s words to me whenever I would take some of my own lawn mowing money or coins I’d find in an old couch). Grew up in a very blue collar area of South Buffalo, NY where spending on those kinds of things was reserved for birthdays and Christmas. Seen as a real extravagance. Refer to Tim Russert’s book ‘Big Russ and Me’. He was a neighbor. I could go on….. Great memories – thanks!! RIP dad. Miss you.
My grandmother and great aunt owned a stationary and school supply store. Well, they had section of the store where they stocked oddball items which also includes the Matchbox cars and trucks. My collection of Matchbox started in 1958 from that store. Today, those same boxed vehicles are in storage.
In the late 60’s here in the Boston area, the Caldor department store would have them on sale at 4 for a buck. My mom would stock up on them and hide them until my birthday or Christmas. But I knew where they were! Never told her though. Yes, good times with the Matchbox cars. My buddies and I would play outside with them for hours. The Dedham Antique Car Show in July just south of Boston gets about 800 cars every year. I always check the vendors for Matchbox cars!
Seeing this listing reminds me of my own childhood with Matchbox cars, Dinky tanks and Tonka construction equipment. It was metal and when a kid hit you with it you really felt it!! I never kept it safe and sealed, it got the hell played out of it and sometimes got burned in my pretend battles with Britians Ltd soldiers against cheap plastic soldiers and older lead soldiers. No wonder I didn’t get into UVA inhaling those fumes. I’m not in the market for a collection such as this but I respect the guy for amassing it.
Fine collection of cars.
In have a few cars, matchbox, hot wheels, what ever that are models of cars that I have owned or a loved one has owned. My way of remembering and paying tribute.
The cars that I play with now I can drive on the street or race track.
The only collecting I do now is pocket tape measures.
I still have all my model cars including a Hot Wheels V8 bug I bought in 1969 with my pocket money. Not that I’d sell it but I checked on the net to find it’s value is only around $150. Still it could be 100 times more and I still wouldn’t sell it…….
what bout the (was it Chicago area) resident had oneades collections? He was single, had collected since childhood. His whole house was a display w/shelves that would swing out behind shelves that would swing out…lined down the halls, in the bathroom, etc. It was a luxo home so big, modern, fancy. When he died (’08?) he had willed them to a local charity (dog shelter or may B it was a hospital). 10s of millions of dollars recouped at auction.
Over here in the U.K., I had a lot of matchbox when I was a kid, one day, I went with my father to the local car salvage yard, looking at all the cars flattened, and stacked, I thought, Weres a hammer, pretty soon, I had a neat mini salvage yard of my own, oh, the pain,
cool…….
This is what looks like to be a fairly good deal to me,although without, more, pictures, and or better information as to more of what is there, not sure, if this can be bought for 50k-75k,probably a better deal. Although about 1-3 year’s ago,and or so,l saw a smaller collection, go for less on the show pawn star’s, on the history channel, they bought the set ,after a offer was made, and the appraiser told them, money, could be made better, by selling them individually.
The AD doesnt seem ‘strange’, as you say, at all, just Unusual.
I have been collecting Toy Cars for more than twice that long, 1/64 – 1/12, most are still in the original ‘Containers’, or Garages as i sometimes say, although some also are not, as i have acquired Thousands.
Its tooo Bothersome to Sell any, so i havent.
I would Sell them ALL maybe, if someone wanted to bother to come Collect them all. Theyre all over my Casita, on the Walls, floors, furniture, my Real car interiors, Bathroom, kitchen, Car Trunks, my ‘CASTLE Keep’ also has probably 1000 or more, that i havent seen for almost 20 ‘Orbits’/years.
Unusual perhaps, nothing strange however ~
Devotamente 🏁
gF NM/ FL USA
☇🕊☇
Wonderful to see. I’ve been collecting promos for over 30 years, and still have most of my Matchbox (Hot Wheels, Husky, Corgi JR, etc) cars, purchased new from the late 1960’s – early ’70’s. Just the other day I passed up a Matchbox Lincoln (mint, no box) for $25.00. It would be interesting to see what is available from this auction.