Caterpillar Bulldozer 18D 1964 & an exquisitely RARE box- See listing

Description: Not what you might think here! Up until 10.45 am. this morning and IMAGE 8 above - this item was just another superbly MINT Matchbox. Simple listing I pre-supposed. A model 64B that I purchased on Ebay more than twenty years ago. It has been on display ever since that day. Things changed drastically. Whilst photographing the item I had gotten as far as Image 8 as I said, I picked the Bulldozer off the grass - and an inch-long section of the caterpillar track literally fell to the grass. Shocked (and somewhat peeved) I picked up the broken piece and the thing just disintegrated in my hand - the rubber completely perished after sixty years on the planet. No way of replacing the track either! I noticed then the small square label (which had also annoyed me the day I bought it) on the left hand flap. Take a good look at image 5. You will see there, something that changes the whole central axis of this listing. It's the box has the value....not the bulldozer (damaged track or not). That one word "Rikes!" Mean anything to you? It meant nothing to me. I did some research. "Rikes Department Store" was a fixture for decades in Dayton Ohio - dating back to the 1800's. A store along the line of Macey's in New York. The last image above is a photograph, before it moved to its new permanent location at the corner of Second and Main Streets in Dayton on March 19th 1912 - just 27 days before the Titanic foundered. In 1982 Rike's merged with Cincinnat'is Shillito stores and four years later, both were acquired by the Lazarus group. The name of Rike's was never uttered again. In 1999 the old Rike's building in Dayton was demolished and memories of the great store have been almost erased during the last quarter of a century Also of relevance on that label is '66' which would have been 1966 It was probably sold at Christmas, as the store had a huge annual yuletide promotion, that families lined up to experience and 49 cents - the price the Matchbox would have been (49 cents in 1966 was the equivalent of $4.37 in 2024 - which would be about right if you could buy one now). So this box becomes an irreplaceable time-capsule. I would suggest the buyer never removes that tiny label - it's worth more than the box and the contents. OK so the last FIVE color images were taken after the caterpillar track self-destructed. The basic bulldozer is still mint and display-wise the missing part is something less than debilitating. I wouldn't think of replacing it - the model belongs to that box - nothing else ever can!

Price: 55 USD

Location: Longmont, Colorado

End Time: 2024-12-05T20:58:43.000Z

Shipping Cost: 6.5 USD