Further to my bloglet about my LBZ SWORD THUNDERBIRD 2 SPINNING TOP I've done a bit of digging. The Philosophic Toad asked about a date. There isn't one on my top but this obvious LBZ relative of it on Ebay Austria, albeit locomotive-themed, is dated 1963. You can get an idea of what the box might have looked like. Now that would be a sight for sore eyes - Thunderbird 2, Moon Prospector, Scramble Bug. Wow! I would have thought it more likely that the THUNDERBIRD spinning top came out to cash in on the series airing in Germany but the history of this is disjointed to say the least.
The pilot episode of Thunderbirds TRAPPED IN THE SKY first aired on West German TV on 23.9.1968 as "DONNERVÖGEL - Gefährliche Landung", literally THUNDERBIRDS-DANGEROUS LANDING. Unfortunately German kids had to wait 3 years until 11.4.1971 before they got more and even then it was just 6 episodes. Amazingly it would be 1989 before all TB episodes were shown on German TV! In between they were fortunately treated to the film FEUERVÖGEL STARTBEREIT (Thunderbirds are Go) in 1967 and 1971. Interestingly for this film the Thunderbirds (Donnervoegel) became Firebirds (Feuervoegel). I gleaned all this anderinfo from the German Gerry Anderson site Thunderbirds and Friends There are some Imai commercials on the site including Zero X but I just can't get them to work. Can anyone help? Check out the 'behind the scenes' sections too!
LBZ did other spinning tops in a similar vein like this beautiful one pictured below crammed with jets and rockets:
and here's an advert for LBZ (LORENZ BOLZ) in 1974
All in all I am starting to think that an albeit small but distinctive market for certain SWORDESQUE toys developed in West Germany in the late 60's/ early 70's, with T in a Circle at the core (virtually all T Moon Prospectors now hail from Germany) and LBZ tops spinning round them. Any views?
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