In August 2009 I first posted this SWORD Fleet Identification Guide from SOLO comic dated July 22nd 1967 [courtesy of the Philosophic Toad]. In the piece I excitedly wrote "And there appears to be a T in a Circle on the nose of the Moonbus?"
I had thought this to be the only publication of the 'T' badged Moonbus but when I went back to my archive of adverts and extracts I realised that there were more! As you'll see the 'T' is a constant! In this 1967 double spread from a toytrade journal [courtesy of Darth], it appears again! You might also notice that none of the toys have any SWORD livery at all and in fact the Space Glider is badged-up as NASA 803 and NORTHROP [blogged previously].
The boxes [courtesy of Arto] pictured below, however, show the Moonbus without the 'T' nose badge on both the 'T' and Century 21 versions [or the Tarheel one for that matter - bottom]. All three display the words MOON BUS on a transparent transfer. Strangely the registered design [by Tai Hing] from the UK National Arvhives at Kew, as blogged in September, DOES have a T badge on the toy's nose, albeit crossed-out, as presumably it was not intended to be part of the official toy release, either by T or Century 21.*
[*does a T Moon Bus box exist, as is the case with the T Moon Prospector, showing no patent/design number and/or a T badge on the nose].
Despite being registered with the T badge crossed out, the emblem stubbornly persisted in advertisements as you can see below in TV21 dated October 1967![picture courtesy of the Philosophic Toad]
In close-up you can just see not only a circular badge [which I'm assuming to be a T in a circle] but this time it's joined by the words 'Moon Bus' and a new flourish, like an inverted eyebrow [or a SWORD badge?], at the side. I think it's safe to assume that there would be another one on the side we can't see. Where did they come from?
It's in this US MONTGOMERY WARDS toy catalogue below [courtesy of Darth, most likely 1967 or 1969 [not '68 or '70] that we see the only non-T-badged Moon Bus in any advertisement, certainly that I can find. Even the Space Glider has the classic SWORD livery. But as these are almost certainly the American Tarheel versions of the toys, it remains the case that Century 21 never advertised the Moon Bus without the T emblem.
Even later in the line Century 21 chose to advertise the Moon Bus in TV21 November 1968 as it appeared painted on the rear inside cover of the 1969 SWORD Annual, with the large 'D', rather than the actual toy [without the 'D']. Nevertheless, this is the closest they got to advertising the actual toy's livery with SWORD badges and the MOON BUS transfer! [picture courtesy of Jim Lewis]
All in all I think it's now safe to say, fourteen months after posing the question, that Tai Hing [T in a Circle] were indeed a major influence on the Century 21 Moon Bus and the two companies were inextricably linked in the toy's evolution and marketing.
T will never be the same!
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