MAC Forum

Just released: A Matchbox Sky-Buster Gee Bee, in red and white.

For those of us who have become bored with recent Sky-Busters material, with fantasy designs and outrageous color combinations, this Gee Bee looks good.

The wings and lower body are plastic and the wheels don't turn, as with Maisto Tailwinds. The registration is NR2100.

Here is a photo. This is the first toy plane of any type I have bought in quite a while !

Here are two die cast metal Gee Bees.



This is the Maisto Gee Bee R-1 sold on a Walmart "Kid connection" card in the 1990s-early 2000s for just $2.00. It is accurate, all metal, with tampo printing that is finer than that of the Sky-Buster in quality. It is exactly the same size as the Sky-Buster. Note the white stabilizers, compared to the red ones of the Sky-Buster, which are made of plastic and attached to the lower fuselage.



This is the Zee Dyna-Flites Gee Bee painted in yellow/black to represent the earlier, slightly different "Z" model: note the wing ribs. The tampo printing features "Powered by Wasp" slogans on the fuselage. The wheels are inaccurate: they are the typical Dyna-Flite dumbbell wheels and they do not have the characteristic "wheel pants." The toy model is slightly smaller than the Sky-Buster and the Maisto; it has a wingspan of around four inches, closer to the size of the Hallmark ornament. The card date is 1982; however, I purchased this toy new in the 90s and it is made in China.

...I just got here! Cool! ...a Matchbox GB that looks and is painted like one! I had given up on the line...perhaps they are trying to sponge off of the publicity from the Disney Movie.
Here are all the Dyna GB issues - all the same die cast body.
Red Box (successor to Dyna-Flite) also has one in the line. Hell...almost everyone has a GB in the line! More recently Hallmark did the orange one last year and the red/white R2100 a few years ago.
Michael

I just picked up the Matchbox GeeBee - and it's nice! As mentioned before it's upper cast is metal with everything else being plastic. There is a "clear" canopy, but i'ts hardly clear. Still - considering that DynaFlite dumped their clear canopies! - a nice feature. The engine face details are simple and not painted.
Overall it looks good. Once upon a time, when toys like this cost .97c it would have been acceptable. Now, a $2.97, it's asking a lot. I suppose we should be happy it's for sale at all! There are so many of these little toys from a variety of suppliers like Dyna, Red Box, Maisto and others including the many, many different Disney issues. I suspect that Maisto is just trying to grab some of the action from the Disney movie Planes, which featured a GB racer.
As for Matchbox, it is a nice break from their bogus aircraft shapes and perhaps will signal a return to more "classic" endeavors!
...tagged and bagged!
Michael

I like the Red fuselage/Blue scallops on the wings (2nd photo from left). I have never seen that color version before.

The Maisto Gee Bee also came in a Marvel Comics (Captain America) color scheme.

Yeah, it's special, isn't it? I've never seen this scheme in any GB historic photo.
Yes, lots of these planes were Marvelized. I didn't really document them or even try to collect them. Ditto for the many recent Matchbox "toy" paint schemes. It's indeed a sad time for the department store toy airplane collector.

Here is the Maisto Marvel "Captain America" Gee Bee, one of the few in this series I purchased.

That's certainly colorful!
- I keep looking for the "Like" button!