Free Republic

For nearly two decades, Lesney Products ruled the world's pockets and playrooms. Born in a bombed-out London pub garage after the war, this British firm turned die-cast metal into pure childhood gold, selling hundreds of millions of tiny cars under the Matchbox name and building a monopoly so complete that "Matchbox" became the generic word for toy car itself, the way "Hoover" meant vacuum cleaner. Their factories in Hackney and Kentish Town ran round the clock, their sales curves only pointed skyward, and their executives believed, with total conviction, that no one could ever touch them. Then in 1968 an...

Rare Matchbox toy cars can fetch more than the cost of a real one, but there are still bargains to be found – so collecting them could set you on the road to a fortune. Recently, a collection of 900 Matchbox cars went under the hammer for £281,000. Among the record-breaking prices achieved was £15,600 for a 1970s ultra-rare pre-production 'Superfast' Lincoln Continental. Another toy that sold for a top price was a 1960s green refrigerator truck. Even with a scratched windscreen it was snapped up for a cool £9,600. Other sales in this auction by toy specialist Vectis included...

CHINO, CA—Local man Barrett Hampton encountered a nasty 10-Matchbox-car pileup on his evening commute Monday. He was making good time from his makeshift upstairs office to the living room when he had to put on the brakes, spotting the brutal car crash just ahead.  "Honey, I'm gonna be late -- there's a huge accident up ahead," he said, phoning his wife, who was sitting on the couch ten feet away. "Oh, man, it looks bad. A Hummer is dangling off a cliff, there's a jackknifed trailer attached to a Jeep, and there's some kind of dune buggy flipped over. What's...

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Matchbox die-cast models, which have gone from child's toys to collector's items. I don’t like to boast, but by the time I was 10 years old I owned a fleet of Ferraris, a Lamborghini Countach and a Peugeot Paris-Dakar racer. Being a child, I would smash these motors into each other and then, at the end of a hard day’s driving, forgo the comfort of a dehumidified garage in preference to lobbing them all in an old ice-cream tub. These old Matchbox cars survive to this day, tucked away in my parents’ loft...