Matchbox 38g; Ford Model A Van

Marking a couple of new directions for the Matchbox 1-75 range this van was released right at the end of the life of the Lesney Matchbox era. New departures in that it was a non-contemporary vehicle and that it was in a much larger scale than was usual in this range. However most of the Model A vans you will see will be post-Lesney. Of the many variations below there are very few with Lesney and Made in England stamped on the bottom. After the demise of the Lesney brand the new owners made a good living it seems from using this van as a promotional item. An internet buddy of mine from Australia (Mick Flack) managed to collect more than 200 versions of this van and he has sent me a set of pictures of them. This is a truly astonishing feat - at the time he owned them he believed he had one of every variation ever made, except for the Ben Franklin. In my page below I can beat that, I've had 202 different variations through my business.

Inevitably this massive variety has a negative effect on value (at the time of writing I have sold 344 of these classed as 'Excellent Boxed' with an average selling price of £2.21), but there are some rare ones which are sought after and consequently get a good price. Look for Ben Franklin, MICA 2nd Convention and Matchbox-This van delivers (this latter one is only rare if the phone number is omitted from the tampo)

My examples below are produced under three different ownerships of Matchbox: Lesney, Matchbox International Ltd and Matchbox Toys Ltd and in four different countries; England, China, Macau & Thailand.