Year of proposed release: 1956
Size: 20.5 cm x 8 cm wide and 11.5 cm high
Proposed retail price: ?1.5.9d or similar (129.5p)
To be manufactured at: The Shacklewell Lane factory
In the Models of Yesteryear range compare to Y-9-1

The No.4 in the Major Scale series was to have been a large Fowler Showman?s Engine. The wooden
pattern with cast front and rear wheels was discovered in a large cardboard box at the Windsor Toy
Show in 1985. Complimenting the pattern was a selection of engineer?s technical drawings of a fullsize
Showman?s Engine that were used by the Lesney model makers to help develop their scale
model as well as an early Lesney embossed envelope containing a large number of component
drawings.
John Simmons the senior model maker at the Matchbox Toys Research & Development Department
during the 1970s and 1980 was quoted in 1989 in Collecting Matchbox Toys ? The First 40 Years, ?It
was when they [Smith and Odell] saw the weight that it would have been, they thought again. Zinc
was still not that easy to obtain and the model would also have been expensive?the plans were later
used to produce the Y9/1 Showman?s [1958], as Jack [Odell] loved steam driven engines.?
The Lesney Showman?s Engine pattern is to be offered to the world in an auction to be held at the
25th MICA/Matchbox Club Convention over the weekend 26/27 March 2010.