As a little boy growing up in the 1970's, I had many hobbies. I enjoyed drawing and painting, collecting coins and baseball cards, and of course, Matchbox cars. Superfast Wheels were brand new and exciting. My collection of emergency vehicles was extensive. I had so many SF#54A Cadillac Ambulances in my fleet that I had to take a black magic marker and write giant numbers on their roofs. My parents were a big help with my hobby as Mom provided the magic marker and Dad threw out all the useless empty boxes.

While at my local toy store, one afternoon in 1974, I picked up the latest Matchbox Catalogue. As I turned the pages, with eyes wide open, I saw a new series called the Battle Kings. I was a mesmerized munchkin! Who would have known that the destiny of my 30-year collecting career would be determined that day?

I enjoyed collecting Matchbox because of the challenge of finding variations. I would raid the local toy stores and sit on the floor for hours, opening all of the boxes, searching for the cars I didn't have. You must realize that there was no other way back then for a young boy to obtain such pieces. I had no idea these little toys would be valuable one day or that it would be wise to keep them mint and save the boxes.

I joined the Matchbox Collector's Club in 1976 and grew as a collector. I learned that there were people all over the world that collected Matchbox and I was introduced to the concept of Mint. The Club offered many special and limited variations for sale such as the K-16 Texaco Petrol Tanker in green for $7. The monthly booklets pictured members' collections with many cool variations. I needed to find a source to obtain more rare pieces.

In 1979, my Father took me to a New Jersey store called Rich's Hobbytowne. It was literally Matchbox Heaven! There were cars and toys of every sort for as far as the eye could see. We ran out of money in just one hour searching only two aisles. The following year, we went to their going out of business sale.

Lesney sold out to Universal Toys in 1982 and the quality of the cars, in my opinion, went straight downhill. I decided to limit my collecting to Lesney England Matchbox which led to a new problem - the stores had been depleted! With the Club disbanded, Rich's Hobbytowne out of business, and Lesney no longer, my collecting ceased and my cars found their way into my closet.

It wasn't until 1992 that I even noticed Matchbox again. While looking through the classifieds, I saw a want-ad for a SB-12B Pitts Special. I contacted the gentleman and sold him my $3 Skybuster for $100! I now knew the concept of Value. He explained how he had been to many local shows and could not find one. I was so excited to discover there were actually shows for Matchbox cars. My favorite hobby could now come back to life!

I raided the shows, with ten years of saved money, and my collection grew to over 2000 pieces. I bought Charlie Mack's Book, joined his Matchbox USA Club and began to advertise my own want-ads. I was contacted by people from all over the world and began trading cars. It wasn't long before my want-ads became sell-ads and I was making enough profit to pay for my personal collection.

Now confronted with moving, needing money, and not having the room for thousands of cars, I decided to narrow down my collection to my favorite series of Matchbox - Battle Kings. The giant Superfast Sale was on and lasted for five years. I compiled over 600 transactions and enough money to survive for that time frame. This was quite an accomplishment for an individual without a computer.

I finally had the funds for a computer and in early 1999, I discovered eBay. My hobby was reborn with a new passion - Web Design. An artist and a perfectionist all of my life, I fell in love with the Internet. There's no better place on the Web for Hobbies than eBay. I can buy and sell Matchbox, see pictures of variations from all over the world, and artistically create HomePages and Auctions.

I believe the Internet has rejuvenated the Matchbox hobby. Never before has it been so easy to contact collectors from all over the globe and obtain rare variations at the price you're willing to pay. My Battle King collection has tripled over the past few years and now consists of over 200 mint and boxed regular issue variations. To my knowledge, this is the best collection of its kind. With the completion of BattleKings.com™, my collecting destiny has been achieved.