You may remember during the blog's first birthday month that an article on the JR21 X-series of toys was posted by Ferryman. Beautifully detailed plastic space toys, the X-series had it's own model number sequence and a particular attractive box art style. So you can imagine how excited I was when I saw what I thought was a toy very similar to the X-series, the compact X-80 SPACE CAPSULE as pictured above (courtesy of Ebay). Besides the X in the toy's name it was the distinctive washed-out pastels of the side illustrations that completely reminded me of those on the other boxes in the X-series particularly the pinkish- backed image on the X-40 Space Rocket - shown at the top below (courtesy of Ferryman):
Not only that but the model number of 240 also fits the series' numbering scheme catalogued by Ferryman as follows:
X-40 Space Rocket: No. 232
X-50 Space Racer: No. 233
X-60 Space Rocket on Launching Truck: No. 234
X-70 Astronaut: No. 235
The X-30 Space Explorer bucks this trend because it is marked No. 303
240 would place the X-80 after the X-70 numbered 235. This inevitably leads to the question - what happened to 236, 237, 238 and 239?
So taking all things into account I asked Ferryman his thoughts on this toy and agreed it is indeed a new member of the JR21 X - series! As such it is also a distant relative of Century 21's Project SWORD! Wonderful!
I like that box - and as for the capsules ... wow!
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks for this info! I've owned the X-70 astronaut for a couple years (I collect vintage robots and ray guns) and never really thought of it as being part of this series... It just never even occurred to me!
ReplyDeleteI love all these toys, though... Definitely some of the more impressive plastic space toys to come out of Hong Kong.
(Great blog, too!)