M is for Matchbox Farm and Other Animals

Animals, another element to play to be included in an otherwise boring road vehicle, another small piece of plastic to burn-out the motor on you granny's old goblin horizontal vacuum!

Cattle trucks and horse-boxes (livestock transporters) were/are a constant source of horses and cows for the 'unknown' box.

Matchbox went with white for many years (top row) and we see all variations, the larger horses being from the Super King set, the smaller ones from the 1-75 Series.

The cow/bull ran for years with horns in white, then black ones appeared in the late 1970's-early 1980's, by the mid-1980's the 'health and safety' people had frowned at them and their horns disappeared, finally - toward the end; other colours started to appear.

The next row are a bit of a mystery, the three brown ones seem to be the M'Box mouldings, but they are marbled white/chocolate and the quality is poor, they could be copies, they could be pre-production test-shots, they could be a sub-contract for someone else? The black one seems to  be a straight 'lift' with reversed leg positions and a different tail.

The last row are late colour variations of  the smaller 'pony'.

The dogs. I love the dogs, better than the 'HO' dogs of either Preiser or the - much rarer - Marx set, they are well detailed, itsy-bitsy little beauties. The pointer appeared first with the Hunter and a station wagon, I've seen it stated as fact that he came with two dogs, but I've several of these sprues and there's only the one dog.

The gun-dog sculpt was reused for the Kennel Truck, with a new base and three pals; a Boxer, a Collie and a Beagle.

Farm play-sets and larger Super King models came with these - the smaller being around 50mm, the white 54mm figure having another dog sculpt, a Setter, which can often be found loose. The tractor-drawn tools are from a play-set or two.

The Jurassic Park franchise threw-up the die-cast figures and dinosaurs top right, while lions have been a feature from the 1970's.

M is for Matchbox Emergency Personnel

All the main die-cast toy vehicle manufacturers have emergency vehicles in their ranges, as kids like uncommon things, or noisy things or things their parent make a babyish-fuss about when they drive past...Military vehicles and construction vehicles being the other obvious candidates for this vicarious transfer of enthusiasm.

The beauty of Emergency vehicles is that play-value can be added by the expedient of a few cheap bits of plastic added to the boxed ensemble...

This is actually one of the last mouldings Matchbox gave us, being from their Super King range and around the 54mm size. He appears as both a stretcher-bearer and a construction worker. Starting life with painted hair, hands and face, after a while only the fizzog got a touch of brush, in the end even that proved a cost too far for the failing company.

As a construction worker he was allowed a wheel-barrow, a wheeled stilage (stillage?) or tipping-barrow and a rather odd-looking sack-barrow. The black and green one is a soft rubberised material, more likely to be silicon than PVC and might be an HK piracy, or late Universal or Mattel stock?

A similar pose here, early ones were white, later ones in the goldie-yellow. The clip-on blanket is innovative (although Britains had done it decades earlier!) and even on the older issue paint was minimal.

Other stretcher cases from various ambulances, one; 1-75 Series (top left, around 25mm), the rest; Super Kings, (around 40mm) note how the strapped-patient design is copied on two different issues.

The Fire Brigade were also well represented in Matchbox's ranges and here are a few variations on the firemen poses. Paint again starts with hands and faces in flesh and white helmets, with first hands then helmets being dropped as the mouldings lasted through the years.

I'm not happy that the sitting black plastic one is M'Box, he seems to be by a different sculptor, I've never found the other poses in black and so he may be a late addition to the range, or from another makers model, or a HK cheapo?

Colours for all these vary but tend toward the navy-blue section of the spectrum.

The police, mechanics and someone who looks like a logger, but as he also comes in 'Bundesgrenzschutz' green he may be a policeman as well? Finding the kneeling mechanic with both spanners intact is a bit of a trial, and with the US 'Cops', there is the pale azure-blue variant.

Most of the above a polypropylene, the small stretcher and the clip-blanket stretcher are however a styrene polymer.