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20/08/2017 10:32 am
Any Dinky Matchbox fans out there?
Now call me a bottom feeder if you like but when I saw these I had to admire them. The fabulous 1953 Buick Skylarks. With a little chrome foil side spear, and some well placed detail they look like a million bucks. The blue one sure needs w/w's I know (and they're coming) but also has very bright white interior that will soon be softened for a little more realism. Who knows if these were offered in any other colors? And do you call these Dinky or Matchbox? How can they be both? What's happening?photo no longer available
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20/08/2017 10:38 am
I have a few, but not the Buick.
The Dinky/Matchbox seem to be higher quality than the Dinky.
20/08/2017 12:38 pm
Chris or Maz probably know the full story, but..
...through all the transfers of ownership in the UK over the last few decades, the parent company of Matchbox ended up owning the Dinky brand name for a while. There were about 3 dozen original Matchbox Dinkies, and I have hung on to a few.
One interesting one was the 1939 Triumph Dolomite. The original Dinky Toy 38-series was to have included one but #38E appeared post-war as an Armstrong-Siddeley. While at Mike and Sue Richardson's home in 1981, I got to look through old Dinky design drawings they were using for research, and the planned 38E was in there. So the MB-Dinky was a bit of a nod to the old Dinky enthusiasts.
MB also issued an Austin A40 van in a period "Dinky Toys" livery, similar to the old Bedford. Another nice one.
20/08/2017 6:17 pm
And I particularily like the cream Jaguar XK150 with great wire wheels and whitewalls. This one is much more realistic than the later bright blue one with disc wheels.
John F. Quilter
Eugene, Oregon USA
21/08/2017 4:55 am
I agree with you on that Jaguar and it seems kinda rare but for this search I'm looking for the U.S. cars like this Skylark and others wondering what variations there are and if cheap enough I'll find some to repaint in factory colors they missed. For in stance the Skylark would be nice as a red or a white version. "Somebody stop me!"
22/08/2017 1:47 am
Harvey is spot on
Matchbox bought the Dinky trade name. And used it to make a premium 1:43 scale range. The Dinky name differentiated the models from cheap matchbox toy ranges. They then launched a successful series of classic cars under the Dinky banner then they got re-released in some cases as Matchbox when the whole collect ambles outfit ran out of Matchbox Australia
In the meantime Mattel took over matchbox and put the Dinky name on ice. In recent years Mattel have licensed the Dinky name for DeAgostini group companies to use on Dinky repro a.
22/08/2017 4:18 am
So where are these dies and is anyone currently casting or producing them? It seems they sure got into a lot of Coca Cola promotionals and a few other too. Certainly the detail is below the new resin models but these were toys becoming collector models and have a nice level of detail. They were in my opinion another victim of the Minichamps blitzkreig.
25/08/2017 5:02 am
I heard that Matchbox used the Dinky name to help protect the trademark...
from illegal use. If they owned it but did not use it for so many years, than other companies might jump on the name and start issuing 'fake' Dinkys.
Binns road closed in 1979, and the trademark was owned by a few people until Matchbox International got it in the late 1980s, when they issued the Dinky Collection as adult collectibles until 2000. In 1992, the Matchbox brand was sold to Tyco Toys, which was then bought by Mattel in 1997! Shroo...