Just got time to post these before the surprise birthday party starts proper! I used to love these encyclopaedias especially this one above. I could stare at the watery skin diver painting for hours!
And inside were these beautiful pics of deep sea creatures, all teeth and fins, each one bigger than the other!
And finally a third page of more wonderful illustrations and in particular the shimmering pastels of the one-man submersible, ersatz SPACEX card-art for sure!
and in close-up!Below is my own humble but fun collection of frogmen. I particularly like the PENN PLAX one as it's a great old aquarium brand and also the manufacturer of one of the rarest, if not the rarest of all monster toys, the 1960's PENN PLAX Creature from the Black Lagoon.
I'm sure there are many more frogmen out there so let's see them! 
In the States these were the Golden Book Encyclopedia, as seen here. Things like this make me suspect we had the same childhood on different continents...
ReplyDeleteMy aquanautical toys of choice were the Sea Devils by Mattel -- never quite as interesting as the Matt Mason line because these figures, while waterproof, weren't bendable or poseable. On the other hand, I probably played with the Sea Devils more, if that's possible! The Sea Devils line were contemporary with (but unrelated to) the animated series Sealab 2020, burlesqued as the deeply unfunny "Sealab 2021" a few years back.
Woodsy,
ReplyDeleteLike yourself I loved my Action Man frogman gear but I have to say that I always favoured the orange wet suit for that Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea feel! and when I saw the flippy frogman it brought a wonderful nostalgia (and why waste a frogman in an aquarium?) that being said, more recent toys can be a joy vis a vis the perfect melding of the 60s, Bond and frogman gear that is the Sideshow 'thunderball' Bond figure.
as a boy, I had the whole set of those encylopaedias, and havent seen them since I was about 8! Bet my sisters have nabbed them!
ReplyDeleteThat octopus on the cover used to terrify me both for the fact it was black and the fact it has no visible head! Very Lovecraftian!
One of the very first vintage toys I found at a car boot sale, in 1989, was the front end of the Lonestar 007 frogman. I've since found Thunderball jigsaws too. There's some cool pics of these toys and more here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.toysofbond.co.uk/Toys_and_Games/james_bond_007_toys.html
I always thought that the easter egg had just fallen out of the creepy stone ear!
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