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A similar very quiet day for me. Only collected models from previously agreed deals, no purchases from the stalls.

Toy fairs are travelling exhibitions.

"Sellers" living in Lalaland show off their old toys labelled with fantasy price tags to people who of course would never shell out anywhere near that dosh for some old tat.
Then they pack every single exhibit up and travel to the next toy fair, where they display them with the exact same ludicrous price tags. Sunday after Sunday, year after year.
All the while they can complain about people, especially those young ones, not being interested in a hobby they priced them out of. I think secretly they thrive on the misery they created for themselves.
Apparently they haven't noticed how much the world has changed in the past thirty odd years and thus they have absolutely no idea how it works nowadays.
Put 99p eBay listing on your watchlist, whack in a low ball offer within the last three seconds of the auction, smile and enjoy.

only a couple of lone stars and a large scale moko dozer followed by a bit of a chat
it's been said loads of times about the stagnant stock on most stalls

A nice (and long) journey to Aachen (Germany) (not that far from the Dutch city of Maastricht) last saturday. Same day as Sandown although not as big.
Left house at 6.45 in the morning.

I met Kay Schaber from Hamburg who had a table with nice Matchbox models and attended this event again since a very long time of absence.
The swap meet is organized here since 1976.
Nowerdays only once a year. Until a few years ago it was held also in may.
Before Europe got the Euro many dealers from the UK attended (John Clark, Trevor Bannister, Nigel Cooper, John Moore, just to name a few) and they could combine with a swap meet in Brussel (Belgum) on the sandy in the same weekend. I always try to combine with a visit to former collector Bob de Graaf who lives in the very south of The Netherlands.
Both members of the MOYBOYZ forum. Kay also is a member here.
The swap meet was quite ok. I found 3 items for my collection and beside Kay I met a collectorfriend from Belgium and a collector I know from The Netherlands.

Me with Kay Schaber.


some pictures I took at the show of Matchbox goodies.









marcel

Look at those GAMA Opels!

One of the 3 items I found at te Aachen swap meet was this very rare British toys The International Toy Journal from May 1969 (vol 16-2)
This has 28 pages full of advertisements and articles about British toys including 3 Lesney adverts, a front page article about the Queen's Award of Industry for Lesney and 2 other toy companies and a obituary for Mr Frederik W. Lichfield who used to work at Lesney.
A floorplan for the London Toy Show including a stall for Lesney. There is also a small article for the Matchbox Case Tractor.

The French speaking seller who always has a stall at the Aachen toyshop has a lot of Modelcao related paper material.
He had more of this British toys The International Toy Journals (from other dates) but as they were expensive I only took 1 which was the most interesting for me.
Please also note the difference with the 3rd advert compared with the ones shown in the advert tread.

















marcel

Hey Marcel,
could you please post next time date and location of this matchbox swap meet in Aachen? Couldn't find it within google.
Aachen is not so far from my location.
Regards
Sven

SuperFast wrote:Hey Marcel,
could you please post next time date and location of this matchbox swap meet in Aachen? Couldn't find it within google.
Aachen is not so far from my location.
Regards
Sven

Nowerdays Aachen is only 1x per year.
The next date is Saturday October 31th 2020.
Mark your diary already !

And by the way, The Minichamps museum is also open on the Friday and Saturday that weekend.
Worth a visit ! They have an example of every Minicahmps model ever made on display.
It is very close to the swap meet.

marcel

SuperFast wrote:Hey Marcel,
could you please post next time date and location of this matchbox swap meet in Aachen? Couldn't find it within google.
Aachen is not so far from my location.
Regards
Sven

Just to avoid disappointment, Aachen is by no means a "Matchbox swapmeet". It is a general model car swapmeet, focusing mostly on 1/43 and 1/87 scale models. There are some stalls selling Matchbox though, usually enough to keep me busy for the duration of the event when I attend it.

The Aachen swapmeet is still organized by Danhausen, the company which created Minichamps, and formerly produced the world's most comprehensive annual catalogue of currently available model cars (before the advent of the internet). Their website on which the event is always announced is found at https://www.danhausen.de/.

If there is an event in Germany that can justifiedly be called "Matchbox swapmeet" then that is the one held four times a year at Leipzig. See http://www.modellautoboerse-leipzig.de/. The next one is held this coming Saturday November 23, and sadly I am unable to attend this time too.

ChFalkensteiner wrote:

SuperFast wrote:Hey Marcel,
could you please post next time date and location of this matchbox swap meet in Aachen? Couldn't find it within google.
Aachen is not so far from my location.
Regards
Sven

Just to avoid disappointment, Aachen is by no means a "Matchbox swapmeet". It is a general model car swapmeet, focusing mostly on 1/43 and 1/87 scale models. There are some stalls selling Matchbox though, usually enough to keep me busy for the duration of the event when I attend it.

The Aachen swapmeet is still organized by Danhausen, the company which created Minichamps, and formerly produced the world's most comprehensive annual catalogue of currently available model cars (before the advent of the internet). Their website on which the event is always announced is found at https://www.danhausen.de/.

If there is an event in Germany that can justifiedly be called "Matchbox swapmeet" then that is the one held four times a year at Leipzig. See http://www.modellautoboerse-leipzig.de/. The next one is held this coming Saturday November 23, and sadly I am unable to attend this time too.

didn't know about that Leipzig swap meet Christian. Thank you. Is that swap meet held since a long time ?

marcel