Matchbox Museum Visit Part 4 – it gets ever better!

After a while I went back to my friend Jang Birsens to see his superb Matchbox Museum, housed in a very welcoming and romantic rustic village house. When you enter the house, you feel at home.

Jang has been hard at work again in the museum, which had suffered a major flood and unfortunately lost some very rare models and a large number were damaged.

But this misfortune served him well when it came to refurbishing damaged rooms and reinstalling showcases or repairing damaged display cases.

I’ve found so many new and interesting things that are sometimes implausible that I’ve had to concentrate in this report on rare and sometimes surprising models. There will be more reports to come, and they won’t last as long as the time since the last one.  But for now here a lot more Matchbox!

Vauxhall Cresta Variations 1-75 Series: 22 Issued: 1961 -the pink/creme and blue/brown are very rare models

American Ford Station Wagon 1-75 Series: 31 Issued 1957

Jeep Gladiator Pickup 1-75 Series: 71B Issued 1964 – in the blister is a copy of the Jeep Gladiator made in Spain by PAYA

Aston Martin 1-75 Series: 53A Issued 1958 – very rare to find in that red color

Trader Pack’s ca.1977 most of them have never been opened

The Huntley and Palmers biscuit tins were installed on trolleys in the Matchbox factory and the workers stowed the parts in them…

… you can see one of these boxes on this Japanese publicity.

Prototype of the CITROËN 15 CV 1952 #DY-22,…

…what is interesting is that one of the prototypes has a cardan shaft on the rear wheels, which was completely wrong as the 15CV had front wheel drive

Two different Texaco Gift Sets

A Japanese dealer’s display box from the Football Team “The Giants”

Some SuperFast Models from Brazil with an original Brazilian box

Matchbox Gift Sets Service Stations

Here is probably the most expensive prototype from the collection, a wooden Rolls Royce prototype, a model that was never produced and is a one-off

The red phone went into series production,…

…all other models were pre-series that were never produced

Prototype of an ambulance in the color blue, there was only once and never went into production, there are still prototypes in white and pink

Mercedes-Benz Prototype

When a new model came out, the first models were numbered, the designer was given the number 0001, the second designer the number 2 and so on

Matchbox models made of soap

More Matchbox Soap!

A Matchbox airplane on a base consisting of a cloud. There are no further details known about this model. Maybe someone knows more details about this model then please comment below!

A Prototype from a KingSize Truck from Resin which was never produced

A catalog from the former GDR, in these catalogs you never found military vehicles, on the front of the catalog was a clock instead of a fighter jet!

And so much more (definitely more a hit than a miss!)

I had another great day with Jang Birsens and his now over 25,000 Matchbox models, we talked a lot and unfortunately the time went by too quickly but as Pink Panther said, “Today is not every day, I’ll be back, no question.”