21 REASONS TO BE IN THE BATHROOM

No self-respecting Sworddhead wouldn't be seen without a bottle of Protein 21 shampoo!

But are there any real Andersonic bathroom products?

STOP PRESS!
Lots of great soapy ideas guys!
And here's the ONLY place to buy our SWORD toiletries,
The Century 21 Department Store, NYC!

CALLING ALL GRAPHIC ARTISTS

Shaqui saying that the SWORD typeface was COMPACTA in a recent blog comment got me thinking about the graphics people and printers utilised by Century 21 Toys. So here's a question for you graphic artists out there - rather than using artists, is it possible that where the art already existed (as a transparency - see Steve Holland below?), such as the Robert McCall and Ed Valigursky images, that C21 simply asked their printer (whoever that might have been?) to create the box art or would a graphic artist have had to be involved to set up the box art and compacta lettering etc? In short, is it possible that no artist was needed at all on some of the SWORD box art and the printer/techies did the whole job?

It's worth reminding ourselves what Look and Learn Historian Steve Holland observed in the McCall piece I did recently:

"I doubt if Fleetway ever saw the original artwork. They were probably sent a transparency and then had one of their regular writers or in-house staff write a new piece around the artwork. I've no idea who wrote the article -- which is definitely different to the text that appeared in Life -- although if I were to take a stab in the dark I'd guess at David LeRoi, who was the science editor of Look & Learn for a few years from 1961.As for how they came to be associated with Project SWORD, I've no idea. Fleetway would not be in the picture. You could almost imagine someone kept a scrapbook of nice space art that they dipped into every time they needed a spaceship of space scene. You'll know better than I whether the box art is a copy or not... but whether the box art was done by an artist commissioned directly by the toy manufacturers or the job was put in the hands of an agency I've no idea. The latter I would guess, making the name of the artist almost impossible to know"

Great Britains

One of the most enduring british toy companies has to be Britains. Its outlasted Airfix, Meccano, Triang and most of the other big names. As far as im aware, its still producing quality toys today, although in a much reduced fashion. In the sixties, there were always Britains toys at home. My sisters had the Farm and Zoo sets which came down to me and later the Floral Garden sets, which they still cleave to in their fifties!

I was always bought the army sets by my dad, who kept my battalions up to scratch with each new release. He also ensured he got each new catalogue and leaflet, to keep for reference.

One of the more unusual additions to the Britains range was the Bandetta Elastic Band gun, a ridiculously simple hand gun that shot rubber bands with surprising accuracy and power. Basically a two piece mechanism of outer case and sliding ratchet inside, it was introduced in the 1969 catalogue and still appeared all the way up to 1973. It came carded with four little targets to cut out of the card. I'd dearly love to get my hands on one of these again!

Another big favourite of mine in later years was the Stargard series of spacemen and frogmen-like aliens. The gorgeous green alien ships with black accessories were a real triumph of toy design. They were later churned out in white with red and blue accents, looking more like the world cup in space than anything else!

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS ONLY MODEL MART

Last Saturday my good Lady and I had a saunter through the ancient streets of York. Seeking out our usual menu of bookshops, charity shops and Blakes Head cafe we found ourselves in the Oxfam bookshop in Micklegate. Amongst it's many delights, including a huge stack of 2000AD comics, I found an old Model and Accessories Mart from 1988 (pictured). I used to really love Model Mart or Model and Collectors mart as I came to know it a few years later. The 1988 edition just shows how TV toy collecting was really yet to happen, as just 7 sides are 'sci-fi' related out of 120! The pioneers back then were Englale Marketing (pictured), The Sheffield Space Centre, Comet Miniatures (pictured) and Hobby Bounties. A third of the sci-fi section is an article on model rocketry by Matt Irvine.

Reading this old mag sent me rummaging in the attic for my own early editions of Model Mart. Back in 2003, when we moved house, I regrettably threw out about a hundred copies going back to the early 90's, as they were covered in mould (cellars and paper don't mix). But I rescued the first two from 1992. I can't describe the excitement I felt when Model Mart arrived on the mat. I had it delivered to my home just like TV21, Look In, Shoot et al back in the 60's and 70's! It was a second wind really and a welcome relief on the dreadful double bus journey every day to my work in Morley, Leeds. I devoured every word and once I'd finished the 'sci fi' section I even read about toy 'cars' and all the rest! It's hard to appreciate now just how important Model and Collectors Mart was to vintage toy collectors just starting out like me back then. There was no email, no internet, no mobiles. Just the typed page, landlines and word of mouth. How we would have loved to have had Ebay and now it's here I'd love to have those Model Mart days back! Despite everything being low-tech I managed to send away for toy lists, ordered stuff by post and most excitingly for me, I actually placed small classified ads advertising my own meagre sales list and more importantly asking anyone for info on SWORD toys. I remember the title to one of these being 'DESPERATELY SEEKING SWORD!' Not very original I know but it sort of worked. I was amazed how people would actually write back to me with a little info and offers of toys. It may have been through these classifieds that I got to know my two 'oldest' 'contacts' WOTAN (or 'Thunderbile' as he was known then) and Paul V(reede), but that may have come later with the advent of email (maybe they remember!). Anyway, pictured are a selection of covers, dealer pages and SWORD prices from my two 1992 Model Marts and despite never really getting into Collector's Gazette, there's the 'Star Wars Jim' cover of the 1989 November edition heralding what was to come.

Did anyone else get Model Mart or other Toy guides like the gargantuan newspaper Toy Shop?

TV TOY ZONE AND THE 7.15 TO LEEDS

Back in the early 1990's when I got the toy collecting bug I used to love sending off for toy catalogues and lists. This was 10 years before Ebay, in the UK at least, and toyfairs, Model Mart and toy lists were the way to collect your favourite stuff. One of my favourite vintage toy dealers back then was TV Toy Zone (proprietor Andy Foley) and his catalogues were works of art in themselves! They were fantastic for the beginner like me - small encyclopaedias of vintage toys' names, pictures and values. Pictured aboved are a selection of these lists I got through the post: From left to right - TV Toy Zone #10 (all black and white). TV Toy Zone #11 (colour covers and centrefold pictured), Toy Scouts Inc #25 (the proprietor was the inspirational Bill Breugman, who published the seminal Toys of the Sixties book) and finally an anonymous sales list in the form of a booklet crammed full of poorly photocopied toy ads from TV 21 and the like.

However my absolute favourite sales list has to the first one I ever got, the A4 sized TV Toy Zone pictured below. I remember reading this gluttonously on the 7.15am bus to work in Leeds early one dark morning in the early 1990's. It was a revelation to me that anyone could make any sort of a living from the buying and selling of old toys and one which would influence me for the following 20 years. I can still sense the feeling of awe I had staring at the treasures in this pamphlet, which had a couple of pages of colour pictures. One item blew me away, a Lakeside Stingray Shop Display panel! Wow! I was amazed that stuff like that was still around and that TV Toy Zone could find it! Anyway, the cover, a page of pics and part of the Anderson listsing are all pictured below.

Although there was no SWORD listed in any of the above, TV Toy Zone and other dealers, notably Jim 'Mr.Star Wars' Stevenson, regularly listed SWORD in their monthly ads in the indispensable UK Model and Collectors Mart magazine throughout the nineties (TV Toy Zone later changed to selling new toys under the name Toy Heroes and Model Mart mag sadly changed to the short-lived glossy TV Memorabilia). However whilst posting this lot my old Catalogue had one more surprise for me. On the back page I'd scribbled some notes from what must have been a phone conversation with 'Modellers' Loft'  in 1996 I'd forgetten I'd had about trade boxes of 12 carded Spacex toys in each at £20 per box - Lunar HQ and others plus loads more carded and loose. £150 the lot, which would have represented a King's Ransom for me at the time (still does!). Needless to say I didn't acquire them, which as usual, now regret!

Did anyone else like toy dealer catalogues?

CENTURY 21 ACTIONGIRL ANNUAL- ACTIVITY FOR GIRLS OF TODAY!

There were slim pickings at this morning's freezing boot sale but a couple of things did turn up. A Chad Valley Crackshot game and this unusual Century 21 annual called ACTIONGIRL as pictured. There's no mention of Century 21 anywhere else except on the cover. The front and rear inside covers are a collage of photos from the Avengers TV series but there's no link to them anaywhere else in the book. There's a section, which looks like Look and Learn or World of Wonder (suggesting further links with those publications). My favourites bits though are the cooking pages. Bearing in mind this annual is for teenagers I think the meals are really complicated - could today's teenagers knock these up? I've photographed the mixed grill with kidneys! and apricot creme - below. My kinda yummy Seventies grub! If I was ever to do 'Come dine with me' this is what you'd get!

 

GREAT BRITAINS

Whilst contemplating my 1960's mystery miniature planes I've remembered how much I liked Britains toys. Those metal bases were way cool. The two sets I remember most clearly are the Police Rider (I remember a different box though) and the little Mortar diorama, both pictured below. Seems like yesterday. Anyone else have any favourite Britains?

Pictures: Ebay

JUST PLANE CRAZY

I've been wracking my brains about a toy I had in the Sixties but just can't muster enough memory to remember it properly! As far as I can recall it was a set of miniature planes or jets, which maybe attached to a ring for a finger or perhaps a wrist. I don't know. It's so fuzzy I might be dreaming. Not to be confused with Ring Raiders - they came much later in the 1990's. Help!

COMPETITION TIME

We've not had a brainteaser of late so here's one. Name the toy of which a part is pictured above. The winning entry will be the first correct answer recieved as a comment or by email. The winner will recieve a beautiful 'TOYSHOP painting blank greetings card' from our benefactor, the Philosophic Toad. You know you can do it!

A FEW GOOD SPACEMEN

Its fun to speculate on THE Project SWORD mystery - just what did the SWORD Moonbase really look like? OK we have the drawing in the manual but despite several discussions on the blog I'm sure you'll agree the jury's still out about the scale. The best clue I thought was WOTAN observing the batteries beneath the housing module and LEM in the picture. We could speculate about the battery size and I'll let greater minds than mine do the math. For me I will forever associate the Moonbase with white-suited LP spacemen, simply because I bought some in the early 1990's convinced I was on the trail of the fable toy. With this 'construct' in mind (is Life just a construct?) it's kinda neat to fantasize and see a toy set which might have been part of the Moonbase, maybe in a different box but I reckon these guys were oven-ready for the SWORD set of our dreams. I give you a few good spacemen from Clifford/ LP (courtesy of Bergin Toys). Further speculations on the construct welcomed!

Remembrance of Things Past

After posting 'Project Blue Book' earlier this week and showing some of my childhood drawings in my space project series, I was surprised at the amount of interest in what I though was just a little curiosity. Consequently, I took to the attic and uncovered the third and also the remains of the final, sixteenth volume of the Project series. I wasn't sure that the third volume had actually survived, but I found it nestled in a box of sci-fi paperbacks. This was a special book as it was a bound set of four small notepads which were intended to either use as one or split into individual pads - each with a card back. I kept it as one book and made four separate 'stages' a la Spacex, within the book.




This third volume drew on my expanding collection of space books for inspiration and I slavishly copied info and pictures from such volumes as 'Manned Spacecraft', 'Frontiers of Space' and the brilliant 'Life - Man in Space'. I also added in Major Matt Mason, a few SWORD items and as can been seen from the dayglo pink WOMBAT aircraft above, a little Thunderbirds inspiration for good measure.

Thirteen volumes later, I must have been running out of steam or inspiration as the final unfinished Book 16 contains plagiarised drawings of some of the more futuristic trucks from the Matchbox 1976 catalogue as well as direct lifts from the Mobile Action Command toys and the Airfix Eagles Fighting Machine.



Sadly, the magnum opus ground to a halt halfway through my redesining the Snow Rescue Vehicle for entry number 637.. I suspect this was probably because shortly after this time the great beast which was to become Star Wars began to approach on the distant horizon, changing the toy industry and the notion of space travel for ever...

BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH GERMAN SPACE ARTIST KLAUS BUERGLE

When I first discovered the german space artist Klaus Buegle last year I was hooked. A contemporary of McCall and Valigursky, Buergle has that same vision for space and science and creates iconic images that only that generation were capable of. Still alive the 84 year old artist is enjoying a resurgence of interest though his collaberation with the wonderful Retro Futurismus.de website, who have given me permission to post images from their site. The site features amongst other things a fantastic 2010 Buergle calender. His resurgence continues with an exhibition 'BACK TO THE FUTURE - TECHOLOGICAL FANTASIES AND VISIONS' at Schloss Filseck in the artist's home-town of Goeppingen in Southern Germany until the 25th April ( exhibition poster, shown below, available with exhibition book from the venue).

The exhibition poster is based on Buergle's own fabulous 1970 version of the Nuclear Ferry pictured below, MARS 1, which appeared in the influental German magazine Das Neue Universum (The New Universe) #87 1970.

From the year of the moonlanding 1969, the 'Luna Hilton Auf Dem Erdtrabanten' (Luna Hilton on the Earth Satellite) appeared in Hobby magazine #18. I love the moonbase modules blasting off in the distance. But the star is the 6-wheeled bug trundling along the ridge. Those wheels are reminiscent of the Spacex and PAYA Moon Buggy.

Extending the idea to include our friends the 'domes', a similar buggy and a lunar crawler, this fantastic image appeared, believe it or not, in Mickey Mouse comic no. 11 1970.

This amazing painting below 'GELAENDEFAHRT AUF DEM MOND' (Off-Road on the Moon), which shows a range of spheroid lunar vehicles, appeared in Hobby magazine no.3 1962. The rear right digging ball reminds of a Moon Prospector.

This brilliant moon vehicle (below) reminds me completely of a toy I had in the Sixties, the Dinky Lunar Bug. Very SWORD! Unsure what 'AC' stands for but it featured in Hobby magazine no.12 1964.

Below is one of my favourite Buergle images, a magnificent space bus, which featured in Hobby magazine for the Detroit Car Show 1964. I love the sleek swept design and the huge Nuclear Ferryesque roof window. The vehicle's tapered nose is similar to the 1960's box art on the Chinese Moonship illustrated below the Buergle.

Here is another of my favourites, the Buergle scramble bug, which appeared on the Lothar Streblow book from the famous BOJE series, below, which, as featured previously on the blog, translates as 'The Inhabitants of the Green Planet'. Fantabulous. Those are BIG wasps!

And finally a painting with real vintage, this 1953 painting of an polar airport, which graced the pages of Das Neue Universum no.70. The little yellow ice caterpillar is very reminiscent of the 1960's Moon Explorer by LP shown beneath for your viewing pleasure.

I was so taken with Klaus's art that I contacted his online 'patron' Michael Peters, creator of the fabulous Retro Futurismus website, an archive of various European space artists. Micheal sent me this kind reply:

"hi Paul, thanks very much for the kind words.Yes, please post our images on your blog, some more publicity for our site can only help :) Most of what Bürgle created was based on technical ideas that were given to him by scientists or engineers. He worked as an illustrator for several scientific magazines and book publishers. Usually the magazine articles were about some scientific project or technical idea. There was some text but because none of the rockets, space stations, monorails, or whatever it was had already been built, no photos existed, so somebody had to paint them, and that is what he excelled in - he had a very visionary way to put vague technical ideas that scientists/engineers had into a photo realistic painting. He was so influential (similar to Bonestell, McCall and his US colleagues) because he could turn these ideas into fascinating visions.

Anyway, I don't think the two vehicles that you refer to were Bürgle's original ideas. The six-wheeled moon car, as all of the Boje SF book covers, was painted in the eighties - I think it is very likely that Bürgle drew on existing designs in this case. Even Lunokhod, the first Russian moon robot from 1970, had several axes and looked vaguely similar.

The arctic airport painting that features the caterpillar is from the early fifties. Caterpillars existed at the time of course - Bürgle just created one with a more futuristic design.

best,

Michael Peters"

www.retro-futurismus.de

www.sf-leihbuch.de

MAN AND SPACE AROUND THE WORLD: FRENCH EDITION - L'HOMME ET L'ESPACE

In the search for copies of LIFE's seminal MAN AND SPACE book from around the world, blog reader and supercollector Paul Vreede has kindly sent these scans of the French edition. As always the Ed Valigursky paintings are a joy to behold and seeing them with French text is tres bon!  It's fun to pick out key words like Booster Rocket. These non-English editions of Man and Space are about as close as we'll get to seeing SWORD in a language other than English*. More to follow on this subject from our correspondent in Finland!

Thanks for sharing these Paul. Magnifique!

* there are two SWORDish toys I can think of with non-English text on the packaging. One, not strictly SWORD or Spacex, has a picture taken straight from this book and the other is as genuine a SWORD toy as you'll get (not related to Man and Space, sorry). In fact it is the only toy I know of where the full 'Space World Organisation for Research and Development' has been translated into non-English. Answers on a postcard!

THE LAKES OF TITAN

Sunday night UK TV has been vastly improved by Prof. Brian Cox's wonderful BBC Journey Through the Solar System. I was genuinely excited after the latest episode. The images of the methane lakes of Titan,  Saturn's largest moon, were staggering. Some are big enough to be described as seas! These Titanic lakes, as seen below, are the only other known bodies of liquid on any object, besides Earth, in the Solar System! How fantastic is that! The lakes sit on a frozen icescape beneath methane rainclouds, a vista that is totally familiar yet completely alien. An unmanned mission to Titan will land in 2029. Imagine being a stowaway, Childhood's End style, after flying there and coming home you'd be 18 years older! Amazingly NASA hope to survey Titan's seas with what can only be desctribed as SpaceX 2029, the magnificent Lake Lander! (below). With it's promise of prebiotic life and earthlike shores, I so hope that I'm still around to see the pictures of Titan when I'm 69! It'll be like 1969 allover again!

Titanic Seas

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia: The Lakes of Titan

Lake Lander

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia: Titan Saturn System Mission