M is for Matchboxes and Some Die Cast . . .

. . . but no Matchbox's!

Just a quickie, I really don't have time at the moment, maybe in the summer there'll be more time to sit-about blathering on the Internet! But not right now.

I mentioned the other day/in another post that I was collecting the Shackman novelty matchboxes, this was a bit of highfalutin hyperbole, as I only have the one, don't know how many there might be or what the other subjects are (I hope it's the rest of the band!), but I do occasionally search for them on that there interwebby-thingy.

But I happened, in all the sorting, moving and scrabbling about which occupies my time at the moment, to find the one I had been thinking of when I mentioned them the other day (on the left with the guardsman label), and another, simpler, novelty matchbox (behind, rocking a sort of faux Ship versus Bryant & May look) which is also a pencil sharpener (the original subject at hand), so quickly fired off a few shots for this post!

From another angle it's more obvious they ain't gonna' be lighting a fire in a hurry, although they can quickly produce the best kindling for a boy-scout's carbonisation badge! And they both have blue (or blue'ish) drawers, which a lot of matchboxes had back in the paper-lined days . . . when we were young! Who remembers making a small-component cabinet from matchboxes and masking tape, sellotape or glue!

But the Shackman box also contains the surprise of a small - 40mm - mocherette (or what I call a 'mosherette' for reasons I will explain - eventually!), being what I believe is a die-cast rendering of the plastic mini 'swoppet' guards we've seen here before in WHC (Cornelius)/Success branding and as generics, so I hope the rest will turn-up, or a further variation of legs/torso combinations - here seen in one piece.

He's in the same antiqued-bronze look of other similar figures of the time from Peltro, Westair and other extra-to or pre-Kinder issuers of these figures, and may have similar age.

As the label mimics the collectable labels some real match brands would issue (both sides of the Iron Curtain interestingly) and given that the figure is the same pose as the one illustrated on that label, it's reasonable to assume there may be more in a 'set'. Are they in one of O'Brian's books?