1. The Era of Conventional Wheels (1947-1969)

Leslie Smith (Leslie Smith) and Rodney Smith (Rodney Smith) were high school alumni, but did not blood relationship. In 1940 they both happened to be serving in the then British Royal Navy. They share the same ideal of one day owning their own factory, and have discussed cooperation with each other after World War II. Finally, on June 19, 1947, they formed a partnership - "Lesney Products". The name comes from a combination of the founders' first names, LES from the first three letters of Leslie and NEY from the last three letters of Rodney, and the word "product" is appropriate because they didn't have one at the time. Figure out exactly what they will do. Leslie-Smith was also employed by J. Raymond Wilson Company, where he had been a confirmer of overseas orders for several years. He only watched over Lesney's financial records at night until "Lesney Products" grew enough to sustain him enough for him to go full-time. At this time, Rodney also found a job in an engineering company called Diecast and Machine Tools in London.

With a scrapped income of about 600 pounds, the young pair bought an old inn called the "Rifleman" in Edmonton, London, as well as some remaining government foundries. mechanical. At this point they decided to produce stamped cast products for industry.

Another employee of Diecast and Machine Tools, John W. Odell, also known as Jack, joined Lesney and contributed his unique casting skills. The trio began producing small cast components as subcontractors for industry. Along with many other small businesses, they contributed to the regeneration of London.

The UK's business practice of taxing inventories on January 1 of each year has led to a decline in parts supply orders in the last two months of the year. As a result, Lesney's few employees were idle for two months while the company's founders imagined changing products to stay afloat. Other small foundries already produced toys, something Lesney's employees also experienced. The first toys of this type were produced in 1948 and were only sold in small local shops in London. By Christmas 1952, Lesney was producing some toys for the Woolworth store in London.

Toy distributors in London were not optimistic about these toys, thinking they were "Christmas firecracker rubbish". However, children were the only ones who liked these toys, and small store owners wanted more of them. By Christmas 1953, the people of Lesney realized that there was a market for their toys, but there was no need to develop a complete merchandising, storage and market development system for the business opportunities of this short few months of the year. mechanism. Instead, they went to agents interested in selling Lesney toys. There were several agents in the east end of London who were well-established before the war, and they got in touch with one of them called "Moko".

Moses Kohnstam was a German agent who came to England from Nuremberg, Germany as early as 1900 to develop the toy industry. He worked to provide packaging, storage, distribution and financial support to many small toy manufacturers, through which he was able to obtain a considerable sales discount. Moses Konstam's company was the predecessor of Moko, and the toys he sold led to his company being renamed Moko. No matter which small business sells the products, they are called Moko.

When Lesney began producing cast metal toys in 1948, its first product was the Aveling Bardford diesel-powered road roller. By 1953, 17 additional toys had joined Lesney's lineup. These wide-ranging toys reflected the production uncertainty that Lesney's branch was experiencing at the time. Mechanical animals, wheeled vehicles and even novel fishing equipment have been tried, but like flash in the pan, none of the products have been as successful as wheeled vehicles.

During the Korean War from 1950 to 1952, the British government banned the use of zinc in non-essential products, making it impossible to produce metal cast toys using zinc as raw material. During this period Lesney only produced the "Jumbo-the-Elephant" doll.

During 1953, Jack O'Dell began designing toys of smaller proportions. First out is a scaled-down version of Lesney's original toy. These little toys were a huge success and have been continued as the "1-75" series. With the gradual success of the smaller series, the original large-scale toys gradually faded out of the market by 1954.

Each of Lesney's early toys was packaged in cardboard, with a picture of the toy, the product name, and sometimes the name of the distributor - "Moko" - printed on the packaging. From a collector's perspective, it's more interesting to keep the packaging of toys intact. There are already some collectors who collect packaging boxes.

In 1953, Moses Kohnstam's successor Richard Kohnstam took charge of Moko. Lesney and Richard Constam entered into an agreement to authorize Moko to package and distribute Lesney toys. Gradually, Moko became the exclusive distributor of Lesney around the world. This year was the beginning of Lesney's production of small 1-75 series toys.

In 1954, Lesney produced 18 models, all of which were sold by Moko. The "Matchbox" trademark was registered in 1953, of which Moko owned 50% and continued to provide distribution services and financial support to Lesney. By this time Rodney had moved to Australia and left Lesney's company, which was now run by Leslie Smith and Jack O'Dell.

During 1958, Leslie Smith felt that his toy products would have market potential in Asia, especially Japan, but Richard Constam did not think so. In order to expand the market, Lesney realized that it had to break away from Moko and have its own marketing network. Therefore, it had to acquire the other 50% stake held by Moko. In 1959, the Lesney Company reached an agreement to acquire Moko's 50% stake in Lesney and printed its own toy catalog for the first time. Since then Chad Constam has started his own company called Riko. In the same year, a second product catalog including the newly developed "Models of Yesteryear (now known as the YY series)" came into being. In addition, in 1954, New York businessman Fred Bronner introduced Lesney's toys to the American market. He became the exclusive importer of Lesney products into the United States beginning in the late 1950s. Ten years later, in 1964, Lesney Products (U.S.A.) was established in the United States as a branch of its British headquarters. Lesney received all the inventory support from Fred Bruno, who eventually became the first president of Lesney Products (USA).

Until 1969, the Fred Bronner Corporation became the American Lesney Products Company.

In the same year, Lesney Products Company encountered the most severe market competition in its history, which was the Hot Wheels car launched by Mattel in the late 1960s. Since the "Matchbox" car in 1969 could not fly on the descending track like the "Hot Wheels" car at that time, it was a matter of life and death for Lesney, a giant of miniature cars.

2. The Super-Speed ??Era (1969-1982)

It was in 1969 that Lesney was under unprecedented competitive pressure, led by Mattel Inc. ) launched a Hot Wheels car that uses low-friction axle technology and can move quickly on a descending runway. Lesney Company struggled hard and immediately developed friction-free bearings for its own cars, and launched the "Superfast" series of products for the first time in the second edition of the pocket product catalog in 1969. In the following years from 1970 to 1971, Lesney replaced all of its mini model series with super-fast wheels, and even the original large-scale series was redesigned and called "Superkings" ".

In 1973, Jack O'Dell decided to resign as managing director and entrust the company to Leslie Smith. During the year, Lesney developed many innovative gadgets, including the "Rola-matics" series. These products are equipped with movable parts that can perform certain actions when the wheels rotate (Translator's Note: Similar to the current MB-770 S.P. Gun and MB-773 Weasel and other types of products). However, 1973 was not an auspicious year for Lesney. A nationwide strike lasted for eight weeks, followed by strikes among the vendors on which Lesney relied, forcing the company to close. However, it rained all night, and to make matters worse, a disaster ensued at the equipment factory in Rochford, destroying most of the plastic parts. Due to this series of events, the "Yesteryears" series was temporarily discontinued, and it was not until 1975 that it was able to return to the car model collection market.

In 1974, Lesney entered the doll market with "Fighting Furies" and "Disco Girls". By 1977, Lesney's global workforce reached 6,000. In 1977 and 1978, in order to expand the space for the design work area and production machinery area, Lesney purchased a number of buildings surrounding the factory site.

Lesney acquired Vogue Dolls in 1977, and in 1978 he acquired AMT, an American company that mainly produces plastic model parts. However, the AMT division has gone through many hardships, including a major move from Detroit, Michigan, to Baltimore, Maryland. Eventually the AMT division was sold to the "Ertl" company in the early 1980s.

In 1980, Jack O'Dell came back out of retirement to assist the declining Lesney Company. During this year, Lesney barely survived by borrowing money from banks.

Also in 1980, David Yeh, president of Universal Toys, approached Leslie Smith and Jack O'Dell about using its factory equipment in the Far East to produce Lesney toys. products. The Disney series was one of the first products to come out of Universal Toys' Oriental factory. Some models were also produced in Japan, but high labor costs there made production there unsustainable.

By early 1982, Lesney had incurred an operating loss of $15 million. Creditors have put pressure on the company. Negotiations to sell Lesney continued throughout 1982.

On June 11, 1982, a heartbreaking day, Lesney Company declared bankruptcy and entered liquidation.

3. Global Era (1982-1992)

With the bankruptcy of the veteran model manufacturer Lesney Company on June 11, 1982, a toy that began in 1947 The era is over. That day, a joint acquisition group composed of R.D. Agutter and G.T.E. Ped reorganized the company into "Matchbox Toys Ltd." and tried to find a buyer. Including Fisher Price (now a subsidiary brand of Mattel, then an independent brand) and Mattel expressed interest, but Universal Toys owned by David Yeh (Ye Zhongwu) in September 1982 On the 24th, it officially became the buyer of Matchbox Toys Co., Ltd.

It took Universal several years to remove the words "Lesney Products" from all Matchbox models. Until 1985, all Matchbox products, including small-scale models and vintage models (Models of Yesteryear), had the word "Lesney product" removed.

Jack Odell, one of the founders of Lesney, purchased many Lesney machinery and equipment and began to form his own model casting company LLEDO (the brand is derived from his surname Odell). Spelled backwards, translator’s comment: The brand still exists today and mainly produces alloy car models. Its sub-brands include Vanguards, which specializes in the 1/43 O-scale car model market).

In 1977, Kidco Toys (Translator’s Note: The company that produced the Key Car series for Universal) was established in the United States and began to develop the U.S. market for Universal Toys. This company was acquired by Matchbox in the early 1980s. mergers and acquisitions. In 1978, Universal Toys acquired 80% of the shares of LJN Toys in New York. When Universal Toys acquired the Matchbox brand, the entire Kidco and LJN product categories were being promoted in Europe under the Matchbox product name. In 1980, Universal Group purchased land in Macau to establish Macau Toys Ltd., and established Macau Die Casting Toys Ltd. the following year.

In just three months after Universal acquired Lesney, many of the machinery and equipment used to produce Matchbox began to be transferred to Macau. The first batch of Macau-made Matchbox products was launched in May 1983. Although Universal decided to retain the original Lesney Rochford factory in the UK, in 1985 even the production of the Models of Yesteryear series was moved to Macau.

In 1986, Universal began negotiations with Kenner Parker to purchase the Dinky trademark it owned. In 1987, the two parties successfully reached an agreement to acquire Dinky. To protect the Dinky trademark, Universal built six small-scale special edition models and packaged them in Dinky's traditional rigid foam packaging. In 1989, the first Universal Dinky series model was unveiled at the British Toy Fair.

However, Matchbox Toys is not just a company that produces alloy casting toys. In the 1980s, many "unusual" products began to appear on the market under the "Matchbox" trademark. Dolls continued to be produced, and even stuffed toys were added. In 1988, Matchbox won a license to Pee Wee Herman in the United States.

In 1989, Matchbox very suddenly produced the controversial Freddy Kreuger talking doll (Freddy was the main character in the film "A Nightmare on Elm Street" at the time). Freddy's image was quickly pulled from shelves due to skepticism from parents and religious groups. In the 1990s, Matchbox began to decline, probably because its product categories were too large and not all products could make it profitable. In early 1992, Mr. Ye Zhongwu, the president of Universal Toys, began to try to sell Universal Toys to a larger enterprise. Another important era in Matchbox's history began when, in May 1992, Tyco Toys made an offer to acquire Universal Group. After months of negotiations, Tyco Toys finally officially acquired Matchbox on October 2, 1992

IV. The Space Age (1993-1996)

In the late 1980s, for most of the United States It has been a turbulent time for toy companies. Only Tyco Toys Inc. ("Space" Toys Co., Ltd.) registered in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, relied on its changing and effective development plan to achieve eight consecutive years. Maintained the record of leading sales in the toy industry in 2016. In 1992, Space Company became the third largest enterprise in the US toy industry with sales of US$769 million that year.

Space's strength can be traced back to the leadership of Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Richard E. Grey. Under his leadership, Space has expanded beyond its traditional core business of electric trains and racing cars through the introduction of new products and timely acquisitions of other businesses. Today's Space Company, whose products range from action figures and radio-controlled cars to real telephones and Matchbox miniature alloy cars, is completely different from when the company was founded by John Tyler in 1926. . Tyler initially named the company Tyler Company, later changed its name to TyCo and finally Tyco ("Space"). Initially, it only produced parts for electric train toys. It was not until the 1930s that he decided to expand into the electric train market.

Before the 1960s, the "Space" Company had begun to produce HO scale (1/87) racing suits. At this time, the company was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the large American company Sara Lee Corp. company. In the early 1980s, Space, still making a living selling electric trains, trucks, and race car suits, was sold by Sara Lee to Savoy Industries, a private investment group. In 1984, Space diversified into developing Super Blocks house and building model sets and personalized telephone products. In 1986, "Space" became a publicly traded company in the United States. At this time, the company not only produced model trains and traffic jam sets, but was also famous for its super block sets and best-selling radio-controlled vehicles.

In 1987, Dino-Riders, a series of products designed and developed based on dinosaur fossils found around the world, pushed the diversified development of the "Space" company to a climax. In 1989, "Space" acquired Vie master and Ideal Group companies and launched the Viewmaster Viewer, Magna Doodle and Ideal Nursery series of products.

In 1992, "Space" Company continued its expansion momentum and successively acquired Illco Company, which mainly produces toys for preschool children, and the world-famous alloy car model manufacturer-Global Matchbox Group.

Matchbox joins Space's other well-known toy brands, including The Incredible Crash Dummies, Baby Giggles 'N Go, Baby Get Well, Fashion Magic, Kidsongs video, Lickin' Lizards and Scorcher Radio Control (radio controlled soccer toy). Illco, later known as Tyco Preschool, Inc., joined Space's Playtime division, which specialized in direct importing and letter of credit trading. Playtime offers a wide variety of toys at affordable prices, many from well-known licensed brands such as Sprint, Spalding, Stanley, Revlon and Tyco.

The "Space" preschool products company is the largest licensed title sponsor of "Sesame Street" preschool toys. The "Space" company has also launched a massive global expansion campaign. . Since 1991, Space has opened wholly-owned subsidiaries around the world, including the United Kingdom, Spain, France, the Belgium-Netherlands-Luxembourg Economic Alliance, Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Mexico, Canada and Australia. Much of the credit for the establishment of these subsidiaries goes to then-President Karsten Malmos. At its peak, Space had 2,200 employees worldwide and had manufacturing and distribution facilities in the United States and Hong Kong.

The "Space" company's stock code on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is TTI.

5. Mattel Era (1997 to present)