SWEET-FILLED JR21 SOMPORTEX THUNDERBIRDS BY STEVE OF THUNDERBIRDSVINTAGETOYS

Hello Paul.

Thanks for the mail & the comments about my thunderbirdsvintagetoys
site.

The sweet filled TB2s - Christies worked a real flanker with
those. They were sealed in 4's - in brown paper.They wouldn't open them for
viewing so it was pot luck as to what was inside & the state of it. All 32
eventually ended up with a friend of mine. I got the best box etc but strangely
he kept the only bag of sweets still in their original 60s state. They were
spiders & bugs etc.

I never knew there was so much SWORD stuff.
I do recall a 2nd hand/junk shop in Nottingham having bucketloads of the stuff
in the late 80s @ 50p each - presumably from clearing old stock- I'd only
just gotten into collecting & wasn't wise enough to buy
it.

Sadly I cannot answer your questions about
SWORD but ......... I have put them & a link to your blog on my
site http://thunderbirdsvintagetoys.co.uk/ExternalLinks.htm

The TB2 you have found is not mine. There are quite a few of them about.
Here's another http://www.solnet.co.uk/metropolis/albumdet.asp?id=1035

The common thing is all the boxes are stained. Very few have sweets in any
state.

Dennis Nicholson loved the "with sweets" story too. The guy that told it to me is sadly long dead. I have no reason to disbelieve it. He worked for JR21 & Lincoln International too apparently.
A lot of the JR21 stuff that's around came from him. He - again apparently - handled shop returns & made good out of bad. And hoarded it. What foresight?

I believe the "Stingray Museum" site is long gone. I did
hear that the stuff was all sold & split up.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Regards,
Steve.

SWEET FILLED JR21 THUNDERBIRDS TOYS: re-printed from thunderbirdsvintagetoys with kind permission from Steve the site owner.

To get a set of JR 21 vehicles is hard enough? What about the RARER ones?

There's a story to tell.............and here's how it was told to me, many, many, many years ago- by an ex-employee of JR 21 Toys. And, of course, it might be a work of total fiction. Here goes..............

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In the mid 1960s JR21 decided to move production of their toys from Hong Kong to England. When manufacturing in England was set up & in production it was discovered that toolings to make parts of the friction motors had not been brought over from Hong Kong. In order not to disrupt production nor reduce sales prices it was decided to compensate for the lack of a friction motor by including a packet of sweets within each box. All mention of a friction motor on the box was covered by a sticker saying "SWEET FILLED" (TB2 top picture)

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So this was done for a limited time.......................

2 batches (as far as I am aware) of Thunderbird 2's containing sweets have turned up & been auctioned through Christies. As, over the years, the sweets had disintegrated & covered the boxes with a sticky mess, it was difficult to find good examples. Most of the boxes were stained.

I also have a Thunderbird 1 with the "SWEET FILLED" stickers on the box (bottom picture). There is no friction inside apart from the metal casing which held the motor. Presumably it was necessary for this to be there to hold the wheel axle.That being the case I can only assume that there were "SWEET FILLED" Thunderbird 3s & FAB 1s done? Anyone know? Anyone have one?

What a fabulous JR21 story Steve! Thanks ever so much for letting me re-use it. If you haven't checked out Steve's TB Toys site then get to it. Highly Recommended! Woodsy