http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p34/nick-jones-lesney-matchbox/early%20lesney/jm1.jpg
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http://www.rockertron.com/catalogue.php?cat=3&subcat=69
RARE MATCHBOX LESNEY MOKO DIECAST CEMENT CONCRETE MIXER:$45
I have the greatest of pleasure in offering this delightful Lesney cement mixer, dating from 1948.These were among the very first toys released by Lesney, there was also a road roller, a caterpillar tractor and a bulldozer made the same year.
Size of this item is apprx 3� x 2.5�
Did you know....The Lesney name comes from the names of the two original founders, Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith - LESlie RodNEY. They were old school chums who met up again in 1940, while both serving in the Royal Navy. In the summer of 1947, they made a joint investment of around £600 and formed LESNEY PRODUCTS.
The cement mixer was released in several colour combinations, and was never boxed. This one is the red body / green wheels and drum variant. There is some paint loss and the mixer is also sadly missing it‘s turning wheel as shown in the photos.
These mixers were later re-released in 1953 on a much smaller scale, in light blue with orange or grey wheels, that are much easier to come by than the large early ones.
http://fast-autos.net/diecast-cars-models/RARE-MATCHBOX-LESNEY-MOKO-DIECAST-CEMENT-CONCRETE-MIXER_290493431320.html
When Lesney were looking for the next vehicle to model there was a building site just down the road and someone had noticed they were using a cement mixer so at lunchtime they took a tape measure up to the site and measured up their mixer.
The mixer was 90mm (3.5 inches) long and was first produced in 1947/8 at approximately the same time as the road roller. The colours were usually green with orange wheels but like the road roller it was released in a number of different colours simply because of the limited paint supply meant that they had to use whatever colour paint was available at the time.
As a toy the choice of a cement mixer would probably not exite too many children so it is surprising to find that although the mixer and the roller were in production for the same amount of time and sold for the same price it is the mixer that is the most common of the two.
The mixer was deleted in 1950 and a scaled down version of it was made as the number 2a cement mixer in the Matchbox 1-75 series in 1953.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/d.jones7317/public_html/2index/cement.htm
