THE OTHER CENTURY 21: YONEZAWA'S 21 CENTURY SPACE SERIES

I've long been intrigued by the other Century 21, Yonezawa'a 21 CENTURY SPACE SERIES. Having never had any of this Japanese eye-candy as a kid I do find them tantalising now I'm all 'growed' up. The series comprises of just 3 vehicles (correct?): The Space Beetle, Lunar Explorer Delta 55 and LUNAR PATROLLER YX-1, all pictured below (originals can be found on the amazing Mark Bergin Toy site). the packaging is very attractive and the vehicles are imaginative. Thay have a standard 2-dish antenna.

The antenna is similar to the one on SWORD cousin, The Lunar Climber (below) by the 'real' Century 21 toy company. In fact the Climber would not look out of place in the Yonezawa fleet with its clunky design.

Blog reader Darth has sent in pics of his own Lunar Patroller: "Hi Paul, Attached pics are a Japanese plastic space tank made by Yonezawa. You might particularly like the logo. It is missing its top antenna. It is very Sword-like"

And here's the BEETLE advertsied in JC Penney's 1970 catalogue, along with the Marx NASA line and a wedge-shaped crawler unknown to me.

and here's a shot in the WARDS catalogue (year?) of the DELTA 55 along with those MARX space toys again and interestingly the TARHEEL SWORD MOONBUS and SPACE GLIDER! A whole fleet of Century 21 clones! The Yonezawa was dearer than the Tarheel! Funny how the word SWORD just doesn't get mentioned in the text but the toys are clearly badged up as such! I suppose even odder is missing the opportunity to link the SWORD toys to Gerry Anderson, but maybe GA just wasn't news in 1969/70 USA? Come to think of it there's no mention of Gerry Anderson in any way on the Tarheel SWORD boxes. There isn't on Century 21 boxes either, but the UK toys were sold via ads in TV21 so we all knew who Century 21 toys were. Or?

Picture: Darth

Anyone got any more Yonezawa 21 Century?