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It's not a toy



Two slightly different colours (one scratched)



Instructions



and in French



and in German

The question is, fisherman's bait press or spy's covert thumbscrew??.

Nipple clamp????

I've never understood the desire to add this to a model toy collection. By the same reasoning I guess I need to add Lesney car parts and lock parts to the collection as well.

Hello Wolfie the one you show is the second one, after the word Milbro was deleted from it. Although I do not have the box they came in.

I guess we collect them because they are part of "Matchbox" history.



George T.

Very nice and it also comes in green

so I cannot post pics yet ... not only site I am to stupid to manage it on..... if I ever figure it out I will post a picture of the countertop box these came in.... 2/6 ea..... the box actually says Milbro Lesney ...... anyone know the connection?

Milbro was a well known firm of local fishing tackle shops so I suppose it made sense to try and flog your product there. As an inducement to stock the item Milbro had their name stuck on to start with and as soon as it became a very popular item with anglers it was deleted and they had to order the Lesney version only - bit like the MOKO name thing.

As far as I remember the Milbro name comes from Millard Brothers, formerly based in Scotland. I used to have one of their catapults, but never used it for fishing

I remember reading that Matchbox sold the bait-press only to the ( Milbro) fishing tackle shop that is why the original one had Milbro on them.
But after some time Matchbox was not happy with their sales or orders, so they deleted the word Milbro so that they could sell them at any fishing tackle shops, so as to increase their distribution of the Bait-Press.
I will try to remember where I read this story, must have been in some Matchbox book.

George T.