lesney matchbox 50b John Deere Lanz 700

Moko Lesney Matchbox 50b John Deere Lanz 700

The Lesney model of the John Deere Lanz 700 was introduced into the Matchbox 1-75 series in mid 1964 and was the first part of a two piece pair, the other part was the matching 51b tipping farm trailer & barrel load,
The John Deere was painted green all over including the baseplate, The baseplate was attached by a tongue & slot at the front and by a single rivet at the rear, the baseplate also included the rear mudguards as part of the casting.
The model was enhanced by the addition of a yellow plastic steering wheel and by silver trim which can be found on the grille & headlights, just the grille or with no trim at all, the models without any trim are possibly error pieces as they are not very common so the trim variation has not been included in the variation table for now.

The model was always fitted with plastic hubs with seperate plastic tyres, The regular issues had 6mm yellow hubs at the front and 13mm yellow hubs at the rear, These were initially fitted with grey plastic tyres, 13mm at the front and 22mm at the rear but later the tyre colour was changed to black plastic, These were always mounted on dome head axles with rounded ends.
There are a few unusual variations with the hub colours. One unusual variation has the rear hubs from the 39c ford tractor fitted, another has orange hubs from the 72a Fordson tractor, A third and fourth have the regular 13mm hub designed to go on this model but the hubs were recoloured to either red or green, The red / green hub variations are most likely to be pre production models so have not been included in the variation table as they are not a regular issues.

There are no known casting variations which just leaves us the hub variations, On the regular hubbed versions the grey tyred version is slightly harder to find, The versions with yellow hubs from the 39c and the orange hubs from the 72a are both very hard to find, I have been unable to find an accurate valuation on either version so the valuation given is a very conservative estimate. The red / green hubbed variations are possibly unique and one with red hubs is known to have sold for £4000. possibly the green hubbed version would fetch the same amount.
The John Deere was packaged in 'E' type boxes, in general it is not too difficult to find, it was replaced by the 50c Ford Kennel truck in 1969.

code number	general	front hubs	front tyres	rear hubs	rear tyres
code 1	green body & base, silver trim yellow plastic steering wheel	6mm yellow plastic	13mm grey plastic	13mm yellow plastic	22 x 24 grey plastic
code 2	green body & base, silver trim yellow plastic steering wheel	6mm yellow plastic	13mm black plastic	13mm yellow plastic	22 x 24 black plastic
code 3	green body & base, silver trim yellow plastic steering wheel	6mm yellow plastic	13mm black plastic	9.5mm yellow plastic (39c)	22 x 30 black plastic
code 4	green body & base, silver trim yellow plastic steering wheel	6mm orange plastic	13mm grey plastic	13mm orange plastic	22 x 24 grey plastic

box types	notes
E1	one black side one blue, "new model"
E1	one black side one blue
E1	two blue sides
E1	light blue sides,
E3	light blue sides,
E4	light blue sides,

values

with black tyres £25

with grey tyres £40

with red or green hubs (pre production) £2000+

with yellow hubs (from 39c) £100+

with orange hubs (from 72a) £100+

values are for mint models in mint boxes

price guide gallery

box gallery