The Lesney model of the 2a Muir Hill site dumper joined the Matchbox 1-75 series in 1953. Lesney's toolmaker, A Mr Don Rix left Lesney to start his own die casting business with his partner a Mr Frank Constable,
The company was called Condon products, Like "Lesney" it was a merger of their names, They made the dies for a large scale dumper and produced a few but this was right at the start of the Korean war so when the Zinc stocks were reserved for military use only they went out of business. Lesney bought the dies but never put them into production but later scaled them down to become the 2a.
The dumper had a green body and a red bucket, Gold trim was hand applied to the radiator grille, The front bumper and number plate.
It had a brown metal driver that according to some books is facing the wrong way but this is not true, The steering wheel was attached to the base of the driver seat which could swivel and face either direction, there were two sets of pedals one in front and one behind so the driver can drive facing either way.
The wheels were grey metal which on the earlier issues were painted green, The smaller wheels were fitted prior to painting and the larger ones were fitted after so were only painted on the outside face. The axles were always flat head with crimped ends and the front axle will have been painted on the green wheeled issue.
The bucket was hinged to the body by either a small nail / panel pin with a pointed end that was not crimped or by a round head pin that had the end crimped.
The dumper was deleted in 1957 when it was replaced by a similar but scaled up version of the dumper.
The 2a was packaged in 'A' or 'B' type boxes. There are no known casting variations and the green wheeled version is a little rarer than the grey wheeled one.
|
|
