The spacer boxes help with known variations, but when new variations are discovered it can throw an entire wall of cars out of whack the plexiglass shielding has to be removed and every single vehicle has to be moved. Everett has arranged the walls by model number, but Matchbox often changes the numbers, or gives new numbers to old vehicles. 'It'll never be finished,' he said.Ĭan you spot the differences in each of these buses?Įven more daunting is the Matchbox Road Museum's display organization. No one kept track.' We imagined that this would make Matchbox a frustrating choice for a museum collection, but Everett seemed not to mind. Variations complicate Matchbox collecting considerably, said Everett, because, first, you have to determine if your variation really is a variation and not just a production line mistake - which would not be very valuable - and, second, you have to accept that 'there's no way in the world to know how many variations there are. 'And I asked, 'What color wheels does it have?' And he said, 'Black.' And I said, 'Well, it's worth about eight dollars.''ġ950s box shows the scale of the early Matchbox cars. 'One guy called me and said, 'I got this Matchbox and it says in a book that it's worth a thousand dollars,'' Everett said.

Those individual characteristics can easily escape the untrained eye. Despite appearances, Everett said, the museum really doesn't have 18 of the same red car or 30 of the same blue truck all are slightly different. The museum's 60,000 vehicles sounded like too many to us - Have there really been 60,000 different vehicles? - but Everett explained that the numbers are misleading because of variations: small alterations in individual models. Less-valuable boxes are used as spacers in the museum's vehicle-walls, indicating where a certain model is missing or is waiting to be added from Everett's off-site stash. 'There are boxes that are worth more than the cars inside them,' Everett said. Everett had to go out and buy them all over again. He wife thought that they were stocking-stuffers, so she wrapped each car individually and threw the boxes away. One time, Everett recalled, he purchased some Matchbox vehicles in their boxes as a Christmas present for his son. Matchbox vehicles were originally made small enough to be sold inside replica matchboxes, creating a box-toy bond that collectors - who've been around since the 1960s - find irresistible. Museum owner Everett Marshall III is surrounded by his hobby. 'He's even covered over his fireplace,' said Everett. It was a lucky break, possibly saving him from the fate of a fellow collector in Connecticut who, Everett confided, is literally walling himself into his home with his Matchbox car collection.

Important information, stamped into the bottom of a collectable Matchbox car. When the local fire marshal told Everett to clean it out, he did - then filled it with his collection of non-combustible tiny cars. Wherever you turn, the walls on both sides and directly in front are floor-to-ceiling with Matchbox cars, flickering like synapses in your peripheral vision.Įverett told us that the museum came about by accident the building originally stored supplies for his trucking company. Walking into the museum must be like wandering into Everett's brain. The 'Mini' is misleading there are 60,000 vehicles inside. Everett's confidence is exceptional because his museum - the only one in the world, as far as he knows, devoted to Matchbox products - is packed with around 60,000 different, and often identical-looking, tiny metal cars and trucks - with several thousand more waiting to be added when Everett has the time.

'I pretty much know where everything is and what I have and don't have,' said Everett Marshall III, founder of the Matchbox Road Museum. A view inside a Matchbox collector's brain: Matchbox vehicles everywhere.

Matchbox road tripper