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Jack
Odell? and the Case of the Lost Toys
Brian
Trumbore
President/Editor, StocksandNews.com
Jack Odell died the other day, July
7, at the age of 87. Now you might be thinking, who
was Jack Odell? Only the brains behind one of the
great products of our time, Matchbox toys, that's
who.
Now
your editor has a little personal history with these
toy cars, trucks and tractors. I was born in Plainfield,
NJ, 1958, and for the first seven years of my life,
through first grade, lived in a modest little house
on a quiet street. Our family then moved to Summit,
NJ, in the summer of '65, which proved to be good
timing because the Plainfield riots hit two years
later?but I digress.
Back
in those pre-1967 innocent times, though, I was allowed
to walk down to Sam's newspaper stand where I would
pick up some baseball and rock 'n' roll cards. Sam's
also had Matchbox cars, which were my brother's big
thing, he being six years older and a car fanatic.
I
was a pretty smart kid then, much brighter than I
am today, and was really into rock music and the British
Invasion since my Aunt Rose had bought us G.E. transistor
radios. That thing was glued to my ear, 24/7, and
tuned to the famous WABC-AM, which has absolutely
nothing to do with Matchbox cars, I'll admit.
Anyway,
my brother had quite a collection of the toys, but
one time when he was away at camp, I was playing with
them and, according to legend, sold some of the cars
to my brother's friends. Well, actually, they say
I was just giving them away, being a philanthropic
sort even then.
Mom
found out and was furious, so she took out her nail
polish and put my brother's initials on all of his
remaining cars. Harry then came home from camp and
was at first mad at me, thinking I had drawn all over
them. Of course you all should know me well enough
by now; I would never do that to a collectible. Eventually,
Harry took it out on Mom. I think we had liver that
evening as punishment, it being a Catholic thing as
well in those days.
If
you're familiar with how valuable Matchbox cars became
over the years, you're probably thinking, no wonder
the Trumbore boys had to work as hard as they did
later on. They couldn't afford to retire early! Some
of the cars have seen their value soar from an initial
purchase price of 50 cents back in the 60s to hundreds
of dollars today, if you have one of the rarer ones
in top condition. But in our case, it was like taking
a Picasso or Renoir and scribbling "HT" right in the
middle.
Alas,
otherwise my brother and I had a great childhood,
thanks to our parents providing a loving home, but
geezuz?.we just wish we had those cars in pristine
condition today. [Harry is also still upset to this
day he can't find his Pete Rose rookie card, while
I managed to retain most of mine.]
---
As
for Jack Odell, his is a classic story. Born to a
working-class family in East London in 1920, Jack
was expelled from school at age 13 and worked menial
jobs for Simms Motor Units. Until the outbreak of
the war, he also did small stuff such as operating
a cinema projector. In other words, Jack Odell seemed
to be going nowhere.
But
the war proved to be the salvation for many in Britain.
Jack joined the Royal Army Service Corps, and later
the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He
learned a trade, mechanic, and served for five years
in North Africa and Italy, where he achieved the rank
of sergeant and found himself in charge of maintenance
of transport, including tanks.
When
he was on leave, Jack Odell worked on Primus stoves
and by the end of the war he had saved about $500,
at which time he joined up with two fellow ex-servicemen,
Leslie and Rodney Smith (not related) who had earlier
formed Lesney Products.
Odell
had wanted his own die-casting business, but when
he couldn't find a manufacturing facility, he found
the Smiths in a bombed-out London pub called The Rifleman.
The
trio set out to make die castings for the electrical
and car industries, but in their downtime they thought
about getting into toys. Odell came up with a miniature
steamroller for his daughter and her show-and-tell
at school and by the next year, 1953, Lesney had a
production line for the little model. Coupled with
a model state coach with a team of horses, and the
subsequent coronation of Queen Elizabeth II upon the
death of King George VI, Lesney, with the miniature
horse-drawn golden coach had an instant hit. More
than a million were sold for the equivalent of 40
cents.
Lesney
then decided to branch out and package little cars,
trucks and buses in the matchbox format and the rest
is history. Odell, as the engineer, monitored the
car industry and updated his models frequently to
include details on everything from Land Rovers, to
Jaguars, to London buses.
Lesney
was still doing a bang-up business in manufacturing
castings to industry, but by the time it went public
in 1960 it was producing one million toy cars a week.
Soon, the company was employing 6,000 and creating
one million a day. "We produce more Rolls-Royces in
a single day than the Rolls-Royce company has made
in its entire history," Odell told the New York Times
in 1962.
75
percent of Lesney's production went overseas, mostly
Japan and the U.S., but by the 1970s, it was facing
stiff competition from other brands such as Corgi
and Mattel's Hot Wheels. By 1982, Lesney declared
bankruptcy, was acquired by Hong Kong's Universal
Toys, and then the Matchbox brand was picked up by
Mattel in 1997; but Jack Odell was long gone, having
kept much of his wealth despite the company's issues.
As
for the Smiths, Rodney emigrated to Australia early
on in the business, while Leslie was the marketing
brains behind Matchbox as Jack Odell focused on design.
In
reading Leslie's obituary from the London Times, Leslie
having died in May, 2005, it's said he was a leader
in labor relations, which were among the best in the
country.
"Faced
with the fact that women made the best toymakers,
but had to get their children to and from school,
he organized a convoy of double-decker buses to enable
every worker to pick up their children."
And
so we remember Matchbox toys and their designer, Jack
Odell. But maybe my brother and I should track down
his old friends to see if we can make a trade, like
one of my multiple Mickey Mantle cards for a 1968
Mercedes Benz.
---
Sources:
London Times; Stephen Miller / Wall Street Journal;
Douglas Martin / New York Times; Harry Trumbore
Wall
Street History returns in two weeks.
Brian
Trumbore
BUYandHOLD
does not recommend any securities. The securities
mentioned above are being used for illustrative purposes
only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell
or as a solicitation of an offer to buy.
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