Stewart Orr

Writer

Something Missing?

Kevin McGimpsey and Stewart Orr are names synonymous with Matchbox Toys and MICA ( Matchbox International Collectors Association). They have been lifelong friends and enthusiasts of the Lesney and Matchbox names, and in 1968, aged 16, Kevin was buying Bentley variations in Boyles sports shop in Belfast, believing that he and Stewart were the only Models of Yesteryear collectors in the world!

Stewart’s mother owned the Pandora Sweetie shop in Bangor and fortunately for Stewart she stocked Yesteryears. More surprisingly, his GP, Doctor Brown had a complete set of 1^st series Yesteryears and was prepared to accept recent releases in exchange for these early ones!

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During the period of 1970 to1980, Kevin’s collection was ‘moth balled’ and placed in his parents’ attic, while he went to University to read law, and then into the army. He met up with Stewart again in 1977 and although Stewart still collected Yesteryears, Kevin had no interest in them.

Kevin was married in March 1981 and his mother boxed up his belongings, including his collection, in Ireland and sent them to him in Farnham, Surrey. The enthusiasm returned, and Kevin soon found Kevin Baker’s Tangley Model Workshop in nearby Guildford, which stocked Yesteryears. He then met a friend of Stewart’s, Keith Mortimer who was a dedicated collector and trader.

Kevin joined the UK Matchbox Club on 31 June 1981, and later attended the Windsor swapmeet in Slough, with Stewart. They were amazed by the dozens of tables of model cars, many of them Matchbox.

The Falklands war broke out in April 1982, and Kevin recalls entering Port Stanley in mid June. In the general store, he came across six 1^st series Yesteryears that included a Y4 Shand Mason fire engine with the crew still on the plastic sprue. The price was around 25p each. They were dusty but otherwise fine. Kevin packed them in a souvenir brass 105 Howitzer shell, and brought them home.

At a dinner party in March 1983, one week after leaving the army, Kevin established Major Models, his business venture with Stewart. They each put in £200 in cash and £500 of their collections, valued at their retail price, and published a monthly 4 page listing of what was for sale.

Later that year, Stewart suggested that they published a Matchbox calendar, featuring the 12 rarest Yesteryears pictured in complementary settings. Not only was permission obtained from Gerry Tekerian, the Matchbox Toys product manager at the time, but he was so impressed that he placed an order for 10,000 when he saw them! The calendars continued to be published for 10 years between 1984 and 1993.

In 1985, Gerry Tekerian told Kevin and Stewart that Matchbox was seeking a new club to take over from UK Matchbox, and asked them to submit a proposal to establish a new one. Dave Smith of Heritage Toys in Lancashire was also invited to make a proposal, but Kevin and Stewart’s was accepted and MICA was born.

As a result of this turn of events, Kevin decided not to pursue a legal career, realising he could make his livelihood from Matchbox, through Major Models, calendars, and MICA.

In 1986, the Chester Toy Museum was up for sale, as a going concern. Stewart and Kevin decided to buy it, and rapidly became experts on a wide range of toys. The creation of a dedicated Matchbox room was of course a must, and it was duly opened in April 1987.

In September 1985, as one of their products through MICA, Kevin and Stewart soon produced their first publication called The Collection. This was followed in 1987 by a request from Gerry Tekerian to record the history of Matchbox in one deluxe book. Collecting Matchbox Diecast Toys …the First 40 Years was published in June 1989, written by a team of expert collectors, with an initial print run of 7,500. An order from Matchbox for 500 further copies came in 1992.

The fee from the project enabled Kevin and Stewart to move the Chester Toy Museum in 1990 to a new home in Lower Bridge Street, where it stayed until 2001.

The connection with white metal for these two friends began in December 1989, when, Kevin and Stewart recall, they were standing in the Falcon pub across the road from the Chester Toy Museum, discussing the next MICA UK Convention. This was scheduled for the following March and they were seeking something unusual to reward those members attending. One of them came up with the idea of producing a limited edition white metal figurine of Leslie Smith OBE, co-founder of Lesney Products.

They needed a white metal manufacturer, and at the time the museum shop had been stocking white metal sets of soldiers and character toys made by Little Lead Soldiers. Their owner was contacted and they were told that a figurine could be made from a photograph of Les Smith. Little Lead Soldiers did a fine job. The Les Smith figure, holding the book, Collecting Matchbox Diecast Toys- the First 40 Years, originally sold for £14.95 and 500 were made to commemorate his presence at the 5th MICA UK Convention in 1990. Now, they can reach in excess of £60.

Following the response to the Les Smith figure it was decided to follow with a copy of an original Lesney Perfect Toy. Perfect Toys, also known as Scale Models or the Early Lesney Toys, were the first toys made by Lesney Products in the period 1948 to 1955. Although a specialist area for collectors, they enjoyed a sentimental place in most Matchbox toy collectors' hearts. The obvious one to start with was the rare soap box racer. This comprised a boy figure, a cart, two axles, four wheels and an elastic band. Lesney Products had made the original in 1949, and co-founder Jack Odell, in an interview in 1988 said, “I remember making the mould myself. It was an absolute failure that never made the grade.” It was certainly an unsophisticated looking model, and Kevin and Stewart felt that their example wasn't very good at all. As they did not want the original they had used as a master, they agreed with Little Lead Soldiers that they would make a copy of the boy but would have to start with a blank sheet when it came to making the cart. The model was made, but Kevin and Stewart weren't happy, as some of the models were easily broken. With deadlines to meet for the 1991 MICA UK Convention, they had to take delivery of all those produced. For some unexplained reason some versions retained the Lesney Products legend on the base.

The soap box racer replica was limited to a maximum production of 500. Of the 500 made, the majority of the boy drivers had blue coloured scarves, whilst 25 had red scarves and another 25 had green. The original soap box racer never had a box so they created a replica, using the basic design and colours from the milk float box.

The printers made the box appear old and authentic by printing the design on the rough side of the cardboard sheets! A couple of years later Kevin and Stewart were annoyed to learn that Little Lead Soldiers were selling their own version of the soap box racer. The MICA soap box racer now sells in excess of £100.

A new manufacturer had to be found, and Kevin and Stewart were recommended to try Illustra, based in St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex. Steve Overy, the owner, already had considerable experience in this field, and Illustra were engaged to make the rest of the MICA Perfect Toys range between 1992 and 2005.

IIlustra's first Perfect Toy was the covered wagon. A far from mint example was sent to IIlustra to enable them to make an accurate rubber mould, and the replicas were centrifugally cast. The full assembly and painting process took place at Illustra’s premises. It was a simple matter to reproduce the coloured box.

This Perfect Toy was released in April 1992, and despite being a horse drawn vehicle, was extremely popular, with all 650 sold within a month.

The second model by Illustra was the Rag & Bone Cart with its full complement of junk. At one time the first choice had been the horse drawn milk float but MICA member Dennis Goodman, and friend Rob Miles, trading under the Debo name, had already made a quantity in 1991. The Lesney rag and bone cart is rated as being the second rarest of the early Lesney toys.

At this time, in 1991, the Museum's rag and bone model was missing a couple of pieces of junk, so Kevin and Stewart spent a few weekends at swapmeets looking for the toilet cistern and mangle wheel. Finally, at a Farnham Maltings show they bought a badly damaged cart missing its horse and driver but with four pieces of junk, two of which were the missing pieces. lllustra did a superb job and the models couldn't be faulted. Originally, in 1949, Lesney made two colour versions of the original rag and bone cart. The rare colour scheme was in pale green with red wheels and a less rare version was in yellow with red wheels. MICA had their first six models painted dark green with red wheels and these were packaged in boxes numbered 1 to 6. The white metal junk pieces are perfect copies and it is virtually impossible to tell old from new, apart from being slightly heavier.

Stewart and Kevin initially rejected a number of Lesney Toys for inclusion in the MICA range, such as the cement mixer as it was relatively common, the crawler tractor/ bulldozer because they thought they couldn't source the rubber tracks, and Jumbo the Elephant as it was made from tin. The large state coach was too expensive to reproduce, and the small coronation coach was deemed to be of little interest, although things were to change. Lastly the Lesney Bread Press wasn't really a toy and was rather boring.

However, they made a decision to expand the series to include toys not necessarily made by Lesney Products, the first being the Father Xmas and sleigh, complete with sack of toys, which was originally made by Benbros in the 1950s. This replica was released in November 1992 just in time for Christmas. One of the ladies working at the Chester Toy Museum, Juna Cowling, volunteered to make the tiny cloth sacks. She painstakingly cut out each piece of cloth and sewed them into shape before placing the unpainted metal toy of a jester inside. Eventually 475 models were made.

The Aveling Barford diesel road roller followed, and was on sale in 1992 priced at £30. It had red rollers/wheels but no flywheel, and eventually 430 were made. Kevin and Stewart next turned to Morestone, another north London business. They made an extensive range of diecast products including bicycles and horse drawn vehicles. Their ice cream salesman, released in the early 1950s, was selected, and Kevin and Stewart bought an example at the Farnham swapmeet for £25, which was duly dispatched to Illustra in April 1993. The Perfect Toys Ice Cream Vendor model was on sale in September 1993, decorated with waterslide transfers stating in capitals, 'Ice Cream Stop Me and Buy One'. Just 375 models were made, selling at £31 each.

The penultimate model in the Perfect Toy series was the 1940s motorcycle and sidecar in the fictitious livery of Acme Couriers based in City Road, London. An unidentified manufacturer had made the original model around 1950 and the donor model was again bought at Farnham. It was in fact an army dispatch rider and passenger, and just 375 models were made. The rider and bike were painted grey whilst the sidecar and courier were painted in yellow. The first ten models were painted in a reversed colour scheme. Waterslide transfers were used to decorate each model. It was released in March 1994 at the 9th MICA UK Convention held at the Moat House Hotel in Telford. Price was £32.

This was followed a year later by what turned out to be the last Perfect Toy, made in the 1990s. Kevin and Stewart, whilst researching the series and talking with Les Smith and Jack Odell, discovered that a Muir Hill dump truck was to have been made. Due to a shortage of zinc, it was not produced, but the tooling, was used by another company, Condon. Here was an opportunity to make a Perfect Toy that never was but should have been! Limited to a maximum production run of 400, eventually 375 were made in green and red; with the first ten made in yellow and red. Released in June 1995 it was priced at £35.

One of Jack's early Lesney toys was the miniature Coronation coach, which offered an opportunity for a perfect souvenir for the occasion. The original price of the Coronation coach was 2/l1d (l5p) and there were two colours of plating - silver and gold. Similarly, Kevin and Stewart were able to launch their Perfect Toy Coronation coach to coincide with Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee in June 2002. Les Smith agreed to autograph each box on all orders received before the cut off date.

The Cement Mixer, finally appeared in 2003, and was very popular. The castings were very accurate as was the paint match. There were two authentic colour schemes but unlike the original, this cement mixer came with its own box. Leslie Smith OBE agreed to autograph a small quantity of the boxes and these were issued to early subscribers. 360 cement mixers were produced.

By November 2004 rubber tracks were available, and the crawler tractor was released in three colour schemes, followed by the last in the Perfect Toys Series, the bulldozer with driver. This magnificent Perfect Toy came in a choice of two Lesney colours – minty green or orange-red. Each box was numbered and individually autographed by the recently deceased Leslie Smith OBE.

Subject ID: 31205

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Subject ID: 31205

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