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Happy New Year Greetings one and all!
In a separate thread Ghosty asked if I might be able to share the images from the 2018 Matchbox calendar I put together. It seems New Year's Eve might be a good time to comply with his request.
Here they are:
January is a simple salt barn scene I created out in my back yard last winter:


February is rather self explanatory:


March- There is a chain of more than 150 United Dairy Farmer stores across the Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky tri-state area near my home.


April- a local loading dock


May- a modified vintage photo


June- a scene created within a photo along Vermont's Rt 7- sorry, but I have a hard time not including a 57b Impala each year.


July- My NZ Kiwi, now living in Cincinnati, friend Bob Richards pilots a handsome Rolls through the carriage house archway at Shelburne Farms, Vermont. If I had a photo of you Ghosty, this WOULD have been you.


August- JJ Enk, a vintage Matchbox aficionado from the Chicago area is a train engineer so very qualified to pilot the Stephenson's Rocket across the Little Miami Railroad bridge in Morrow, Ohio.


September- Camaro nut Paul Barron trades in his bow-tie for a vintage Jaguar upgrade for his visit with Cliff


October- crossing Lake Champlain from New York to Vermont on the Essex Ferry. Cadillac Tim Kissel moves into place to get a photograph of that handsome 27C.


November- Mason, Ohio's Main Street Sweets gets a Nestle's delivery just in time for the holidays. South Australia's Fos Wilson came out of retirement for this opportunity.


December- Garriss' General Store is a New Jersey landmark. Santa stopped to make a holiday delivery.

Great calendar you should get a few made up & sell them to the boys. Pete

I totaly agree
Gary

I made 30 copies this year and they've all been distributed around the globe.
Sadly it has become somewhat of a chore getting our US postal service to ship these internationally without complications. For years they were shipped as a "large envelope" with no customs form required. This year, in spite of the fact that they still were packaged in a large manila envelope, the first three post offices I went to insisted they needed to be shipped as a "parcel" because the spiral binding was thicker than the pages of the calendar itself. As a parcel it would have been in excess of $20US to ship them to Europe or Australia. Thankfully the fourth post office still sent them out as a large envelope, half the price of a parcel.
I don't want to get into "selling" them either. I'm not an attorney but my guess is that as soon as I'm selling them I have to worry about Mattel being upset about my use of the Matchbox name.
So I'm afraid the best I can do is to share the photos here and welcome you to use them to assemble a calendar of your own at your local print shop.

Greg, these are simply great. You show some really artistic flair and thechnical ability.The subject matter is brilliant and the Rolls picture is simply superb, gave me a gret big smile, something that is lacking with me lately, so thank you very much for putting these up on the forum.

A happier Ghosty.

Yeah much appreciated

I too do a desk calendar for three of my collector friend, it is where you insert a photo in for each month. This year I decided on putting photos of the "Major Models" in.

I have done them since 2011 like Greg I find they become rather fussy at the post office, the one I send to Greg because of the metal spine on it I have to put a customs label on the padded bag as it is going from Australia to America.

The other two go one to Victoria and one to South Australia, and then I do one for my self, I do manage to fit them into a padded bag. As yet my one from Greg has not arrived the post is just so slow, I am looking forward to it.

George T.

Some pages from previous years (sorry about the glare on some).

matchbox_n_molars wrote:This year, in spite of the fact that they still were packaged in a large manila envelope, the first three post offices I went to insisted they needed to be shipped as a "parcel" because the spiral binding was thicker than the pages of the calendar itself. As a parcel it would have been in excess of $20US to ship them to Europe or Australia. Thankfully the fourth post office still sent them out as a large envelope, half the price of a parcel.

I had the same trouble with some booklets I was making. I switched from manila envelopes to some white (thin) cardboard pleated envelopes and that ended the problem.

Thank's Joe for posting some more of Greg's excellent work.

Seems there is very little standardisation with moving letters and parcels around our little planet, I mean, its not as if it is a new invention so you would have thought they could have got it sorted by now...

Ghosthunter.