WHEN it was new, this Matchbox toy cost 2s 6d - or just 12.5p. Yesterday, 39 years later, it fetched £7,475 and established a new world record.

The 1961 Magirus Deutz crane-lorry - in a trial colour only used on a handful of models - was sold to a German collector at Teesside auctioneers Vectis.

The price eclipsed the previous best for a Matchbox toy: £4,510 for a boxed 1968 apple-green, open-top Mercedes Benz 230SL sports car, sold by the same auctioneers in 1998.

The crane-lorry, number 30 in the Matchbox series made by the English firm Lesney, is also in immaculate condition and in its original box.

What makes it so valuable is its colour: light brown with a red jib, instead of the main production run of silver with orange jib.

Auction house cataloguer Andrew Reed said afterwards: "It is a stunning price for a Matchbox. But it is an immense rarity - a real treasure."

Few children brought up in the 1950s were without a collection of Matchbox toys - so named because they were designed to fit into a matchbox.

Most of the all-important boxes were thrown away on the first day - and the vehicles themselves were bashed to bits through use.

Inevitably, some survived intact to be worth a small fortune 40 years later.

Matchbox was the first new range of toys to be produced after the war and had immediate appeal. They were the first truly affordable pocket money toys at a time when food was still rationed.

Despite the £7,475 price tag, the tiny Matchbox is still some way behind the world record for the larger Dinky toys: £12,650 for a yellow and green Bentalls delivery van which cost 6d when new in the 1930s