A Hobby that would not die

I almost forgot about this blog I made more than 7 years ago.  Having retired from corporate life does have the advantage of having so much time in my hands that reliving a hobby I thought I had outgrown had me digging the attic for all those 1/43 diecasts that today served to refresh some memories - memories of a time when I spent most of my savings on some frivolity that had its roots back when I was just 5 years old.  I remember the very first Matchbox diecast my mother gifted me on my 5th birthday.  It was a red Ford T car.  Below is the sole surviving model that is now 55 years old, if I reckon right, scattered beside my desktop PC.  I did some detailing modifications on this model, making a glossing top flat, and adding a split windshield based on the pictures I have seen.

Since then, every time we passed a store going to school, I would ask my mother to get this or that matchbox. Never a day passed when I did not get a new Matchbox.  Looking back, it would seem like getting one was my reward for going to school. Between 1965 and 1977, I am amassed hundreds of Matchbox and Corgi toys in several scales, but my favorites have always been the larger ones, mostly 1/43 scales.  Matchbox never standardized on the scale, as many of its Models of Yesteryears fall between as large as 1/30 to a relatively lower 1.50 scales. This made it difficult to pigeon hole many of the remaining models I had with the newer models from Ixo, Minichmaps, AutoArt, Vitesse, Signature, and Norev, to mention some, which standardized on 1/43 and 1/18, with some in between.