A matchbox car collection, put together by a renowned Darlington artist, is expected to sell at auction for around £21,000 later this month. 

Terry Kneeshaw, who started his career as an artist at The Northern Echo working out of the newspaper's Priestgate office, will sell off 450 Matchbox Regular Wheels on October 30 this month. 

The lifelong collection started in the 1970s, focuses on the artwork for each box type A to F by model series 1 – 75 and includes colour variations and rare issues.

(Image: Vectis)

Terry is selling his collection via Vectis auction house, as now as he is retiring and moving on to new projects. 

The 450 lot auction has an estimate of £16,000 - £21,000. 

On his unique collecting methodology, Terry said: "For a lot of people, the cars are the most important part [of the collection] but for me as an artist, what was more important was the pictures. 

(Image: Vectis) "So when I collected, I collected all the box types. It may be that you see you have three of the same car, but I would collect every A box, every B box, every C box and so on. 

"I collected them as sets of boxes, rather than as cars. It was an unusual way to collect. 

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"I could never understand why people collected the cars in a series when you're neglecting the fact that there are all these different boxes."

(Image: Vectis)Despite "loving every minute" of building his collection over the last five decades, Terry had decided to "let it go".

He said: "I'm a pensioner now, but I've got a new mantra in life - don't retire, refire. I'm asking for another thirty years to do a completely new project!"