July 30th Matchbox Ambassador Report, by Dirk Schleuer…

Hi Matchbox friends,

It is always not so easy to self-introduce to a community, but I guess most guys of the mailing list did meet me already at one or the other convention or has even participated in one of mine?!

So who am I? Born in 1970 I started to collect Matchbox – mostly Models of Yesteryear – in 1982 when my father bought back home some further models from a business trip. We always had about 20 models on a little shelf above the TV and we children werent allowed to play with them – at least not the crash games we liked so much these days. One of the new ones did hold a short questionery from Matchbox Deutschland based in Hösbach asking about how many models you have, where you buy etc. We answered that and do get from that time on a brochure 3-4 times a year with all the new models and a list which shows that there was a lot more to collect than the 30 models we had sofar. Fire started …

Over the next couple of years rather than waving flag at soccer games like good Germans do we went to toy meets and picked up another couple of 100 MoYs which was all that was available in Germany and near by like Belgium and Netherlands. Than in 1989 with bid more school English available I visited my first MICA convention … and fire became volcano 😉

In 1993 I helped MICA to get the first European convention started in next door town called Hilden. Thats where I first met Bob Rusconi from Australia. I visited him in 1996 and worked for Matchbox Australia on the Melbourne motor fair. That is also the starting point of the German club. We joined into the Matchbox Collectors Club line with Bob running Australia, Paul Carr England and Everett Marshall for the USA.

So our club will have his 20th aniversary in 2016 – 20 nice sightseeing and making friends events all over Germany from north (Hamburg) to south (Stuttgart) and east (Potsdam) to west (Aachen). And that is not the only event we organise. Since 2002 (50th aniversary) we present our hobby at the Leipzig fair ground and you all probably know the models. But we also had already 3 european events which are always located in the region between Netherlands, Belgium and Germany so everybody can reach it easily with an airport nearby. The fourth one is already planned – dont miss that one!

My collecting is still glowing hot – in 1989 I added the Dinky Collection from Matchbox to my field. In 1996 I started a small hobby business that you know all might know as the moyshop. It was a hobby and it still is as I’m normally working at the same company now for 25 years being a computer programmer, a product manager, a project manager and now a department manager. But I’m really still on fire for the best hobby of the world – orange or Matchbox – however you want to call it. And as my series were all stopped in 2006 I’d rather now collect friends and friendship than new models but I’m happy whenever I find a model a friend is missing and I can get it to him!

My year as ambassador will surely be more than interesting…times have changed – not only we have new guys at the team that we fresh and showing a great attitude towards the collectors, now the new team is also independent from the blue guys and so we will see lots of new stuff happening. One is that the way of communication has changed a bit. Things will get quicker with Ambassador updates rather that static reports and we will use the Lamley Blog from my friends David and John more for hot like hell information. Also we will use Instagram and YouTube “matchboxworld” to show more live action. You can follow me under dirk.schleuer at instagram and “dirk schleuer” & “MBBomarr” at youtube if you wish!

If you have any questions dont hesitate to ask me.    

I will surely come back with questions to you, trivias and I’m still happy to forward your questions to the team. If you are suggesting a model than I would be more than happy to put that on a list … keep in mind we will always have a mixture of new licensed cars, recolored existing castings and new generic ideas – perhaps you find also good ideas for the last two parts!

So you all have fun … enjoy the hobby …

Your proud 11th ambassador

Dirk Schleuer

New special series: 75 years of Jeep

Showing this slide already is a sign that there is truly a big change going on and that the new team will surely be more open towards the collectors base and really will start with a new spirit into this new era. I personally wish them all the best for their new work and as every start is hard (german saying) we will hestitate to help them as much as we can. There can be really starting something good and interesting here!

So what we see is a special series of eight Jeep models. Don’t get mixed up with special Walmart exclusive models for 2015. These will be a special series for 2016 not exclusive for a special retailer but as an addition to the range. As you see we are at a very early stage of that project but I personally can hardly wait till I have them in hands! How about you?

The other series that was already shown is the 2016 “Best of World” series – you surely did check that one out on the Lamley-Blog?! If not – you should do so!
9 licensed and only one unlicensed vehicle which is our beloved Routemaster Bus – what else do we want?! Hopefully it is also distributed all over the world which really would be great to see! You can already see the first pictures of the real cars at the matchboxworld Instagram profile.

Other than that Im really looking forward to see the counter displays with Matchbox in boxes again … which will surely be more beloved than the power grab bags!

I surely cant hold it back – hopefully you don’t want to get on it and do the job because of my first small report being too bad!

Have fun …

Dirk