'51 is for Hudson Hornet 'Black & White'

A die-cast quickie this morning, but we seem to be in a bit of a die-cast phase at the moment!

Err. . . or we were when I wrote that about three weeks ago! Anyway, it's back to the top of a queue it’s been at the top of a couple of times already! Still just a quickie . . .

. . . covering this which I picked-up for a quid a while ago. I just thought that for a pound it was a lovely model, roughly 1:76/72nd compatible, nicely nostalgic and worth a punt!

Whether there is (or was - the model's two-years old which is an age with modern multi-wave stuff) a military version I don't know, but with Jonny Lightning and Hot Wheels also in the Mattel stable, there may be/have been one under another brand, which would be useful for 'Indy IV'; The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! It would go so well with the not-54mm figures from Galoob!

MBX (Matchbox - geddit!) Valley - looks pretty grim! This is just the sort of thing you would have found rushing around a Cold War airbase, or any base for that matter! And it's also the same type of thing you will see losing wars against Tentecled Aliens, Giant Ants or huge Japanese Dino-monsters in 1950's, black & white, B-movies!

"Invasion of the Giant Alien Dino-Antmen! At  theatre near you! Now in 3D, surround-sound, with smell-o-vision, and fright-o-seats!"

Posed with an Airfix airman; is he too-small or too-big? I think he looks just right! "Tentacles officer? No, nothing like that's come this way" he says, before turning back into a jelly-monster and smothering the patrolman in flashing, smoking, cotton-wool 'slime'!

An interesting point raised by this purchase, which I'm sure most of you have noticed for yourselves, but it's worth a paragraph or two of blurb,  is how the global nature of trade (and particularly the toy-trade with its centre in China) these days, means there is - both moulded and stamped into the belly-pan of the car and on the rear of the backing-card - an absolute plethora of consumer information, tracking data, licensing, batch QA/QC codes and other stuff, some of which is as mysterious to me as the tentacled-aliens might have been to the small-town cinema-goer's of 1951!

On the car

Above transmission

'52 Hudson Hornet ® TM. (nod to real manufacturer/rights holder (Chrysler)'s license)

© FCA USA LLC 2016 (Chrysler's parent (Ford), licence date)

Matchbox TM MB 1046 (Matchbox brand logo and stock code?)

Below transmission

© 2016 Mattel DVK 13 (parent's bit)

1186 MJ, 1, NL (Dutch distributor)

J43 (over-stamped model number?)

Made In Thailand [with elephant logotype] (nod to origin / [factory])

Also on the card

J44 (dry-stamped model number typo, or QA tracker?)

DVK13-4B10

TPN12 (Asian packer, packaging type/complience?)

57/125 (57th of 125 models for that season?)

Asst. 30782 (assortment - line/wave number)

ASTM F963 (French assortment?)

MC∙ 993532 - P (Peru, Poland, pack?)

OCP 0061 (Canadian packaging compliance)

CE-BRI/INNAC 00128-03A (British? Brazilian [import from EU] code?)

NM 300/2002

0 35995 30782 7 (bar code/stock number, also barcode, universal product code or UPC)

To which a lot of other stuff is added which is either self-explanatory (Mattel) or graphical logos awarded by ministries, consumer or trade organisations for standards met (CE mark), or membership of (Lion Mark)...

...Then there are other codes, some postal, some company registrations hidden in the blurb!

With the Donald wanting US firms to end all this Global 'shit-hole' crap and the stupider half (sorry - 52%) of the British (old enough to vote) also for opting-out; this information will only get more complicated as new taxes, tariffs and import/export controls get codified.

Not even a 'quickie' in the end!