New Matchbox book!

[mattbacon]

http://livres.histoireetcollections.com ... chbox.html;

Also available on Amazon:
The Story of Matchbox

bestest,
M.

[JamesPerrin]

Brilliant.... and out of stock at Amazon already. Ordered a copy anyway.

[BWP]

Ooh, gotta get me a copy of that.

[JohnRatzenberger]

Amazon (US) says pre-order with expected Aug 2011 release ... so I pre-ordered ... is it August yet ?

[JamesPerrin]

Note it is only 84 pages so it's not quite the last word on MB kits. Hopefully it will be more of the history than a catalogue of boxart as we have the excellent http://matchboxkits.org; for that.

[Lyell72planes]

Preordered my copy on Amazon. Glad it's in English. I have Carbonel's Heller
book but it's all in French. Lyell...

[MerlinJones]

Got my copy today, in my sweaty and eager hands...and I'm hugely disappointed and extremely miffed.
The available resources re Matchbox have not been used and it feels that JC Carbonel just doesn't like Matchbox kits and never did!

As a dry history, all appears correct and some 'nuggets' of info are there, plus there is a lot of padding made up of contemporary kits reviews, roughly split 50/50 between good and bad.
No mention of Ted Taylor, nor feedback from those expert modellers who, back in the day, produced masterpieces from Matchbox kits and were then featured in a relatively successful advertising campaign.

Having read it now 3 times, there's no mention of where we, as kids, were able to buy our kits and, more importantly, why...other than repeated references to their relative low cost. There is none of the passion we regularly exhude, through the CBK and Rheinholds marvellous Matchbox site.

The closest the whole book gets to the enthusiasm is within the last paragraph;
...the death of Maurice landi was announced...as a result, a group of modellers created a 'tribute to Maurice Landi' made up of models built from original Matchbox kits; it was displayed at a special stand during the Scale Models World show in this year.

Yes we did...no it wasn't...no, it wasn't.

I will be writing to JC.

Regards,
Bruce

[JamesPerrin]

That's extremely disappointing Bruce - the "Matchbox Kits" book is yet still to be written then! May be we should write one and then we can include a whithering and inaccurate mention of JC book.

One thing you didn't mention was what the picture content was like.

[MerlinJones]

Lots and lots of pictures, on every page...90% of which are box arts.
Less than 30 pictures of actual plastic, with these mostly coming from a few catalogues and advertisements.

[JamesPerrin]

JC - Just a Collector ?

It's a problem with a lot of books on model kits, there are only pictures of the boxes 'cos the collectors never build anything. The Revell book has a lot of built models, but these were the shop display kits and are collectable in themselves. Most books have me shouting "show me the sprues!"

[beany]

Lots and lots of pictures, on every page...90% of which are box arts.
Less than 30 pictures of actual plastic, with these mostly coming from a few catalogues and advertisements.

I was almost hoping you'd say he'd had the cheek to nick some of our pictures without permission (which I'd have been secretly chuffed about - I still have the front cover of Feb 2008 SAM framed in my hall with the small inset of my 1/32 Matchbox Dauntless on it!), but as the JC book sounds so disappointing I'm glad we are not featured now.

James has a point, perhaps we should do the definitive Matchbox book - I'm sure Ted would help out as well. We could look on Mike's superb effort as the prototype!

cheers
Al.

P.S. Just started the Matchbox 1/12 Harley Davidson and still can't get enough of Matchbox kits generally.

[MerlinJones]

The history is public knowledge...no difficulties there.
Ted's input would be a must, as would anytghing from ex-employees (I'm thinking JB Models).
Add Rheinhold...

[mattbacon]

Oddly enough... I was thinking exactly the same. I wonder if Crowood would be interested. I'm not sure there's be enough of an audience to sustain a big book of Matchbox, but I bet we could put together "The Big Book of Classic Plastic" with sections on Airfix, Frog, Matchbox and (ducks and runs for tin hat) Revell GB, plus a section or two on the "others". I think the criteria would have to be "mainstream" ie yes to Kitmaster and Merit, no to Aeroclub and Skybirds etc. To reach a decent audience, it would have to appeal to collectors, modellers AND people who just remember seeing the boxes in Woolies... We could ask Matt Irvine who to approach at Crowood...

bestest,
M.

[JohnRatzenberger]

So, should I cancel my pre-order ?

[bassman]

Reading the review I wait ordering this book. And I am still happy with "our" tribute to Maurice Laundi book. This book shows the passion we (I) had for the Matchbox kits. Building the Buccaneer for this book was an honour.
Maybe writing a book on Matchbox kits is a good idea. I am sure that we can do it again: building kits for a book like this to show why these kits were fun. I am in.
Henk