MONTH OF THE BOOTLEG AT TOYS FROM THE PAST!
This is a plastic car with a size smaller than three inches, it could actually be confused with an H0 1:87 model, although I guess it is just small because the original Morris Minor was a very small car.
The car is marked “Nº 434 Hong Kong” and it took me a bit to find out which manufacturer is behind this Matchbox knock-off. The answer is Blue Box, a company that has already appeared once in my blog, and whose story is kind of paradigmatic for a Hong-Kong company that started copying toys from England, and later became a great and powerful toy company.
Compared to the Matchbox car, I would say this one is based in its own cast, since there are many big differences to come from a cloned cast. The toy is quite fragile (note the broken window frame on one side, and the missing part in the chassis), so it is quite surprising to have found this item still in such a good shape. Its previous owner was surely a very careful guy. It is a nice substitute for the
Machbox model, since this is one of the hardest to find.
This last picture shows the Bue Box model among others in a very nice blisterpack with the characteristic blue label. The car was also available in single boxes, and other multi-packs including 8 or 6 cars.
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| Picture from Vectis.co.uk |
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| Picture from planetdiecast.com |
FACTS AND FIGURES:
- Name: MORRIS MINOR (ref. 7434)
- Scale: Around 1:64
- Year: 1960
- Company: Blue Box (Hong-Kong)
- Size: approx. 6 cm
Lovely post!
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