I have wanted to post something like this for a very long time. In fact, like me, all SWORD fans will be thrilled at this. You'll all know that the Century 21 Project SWORD Moonbase Set is the stuff of myth, tantalisingly described in the SWORD Official Manual above but to this day never seen. Until Now! This is the first detailed account of anyone actually seeing the set as, amazingly, blog reader Andy B remembers the fabled toy! I'll let him take up the story in his own words:
"OK, well here's what I remember about the moonbase set. Please remember its a long while ago, so this is from memory.What I mainly remember is thinking at the time, "well, I'd never seen that before", because I think I had suspected it had never been released. I had a number of the SWORD toys, probably when they came out (1967?), and by the time I saw the moonbase, I had become more interested in plastic models, planes, tanks etc. So it was probably towards the end of the 1960s, even c.1970.
I saw the box, unopened in a department store which hed a toy dept. I think it was during a visit to Swindon with my family, and I don't know what the shop was called.
It may be me embroiderering the memory, but I think it was a large rectangular carboard box, white with perhaps two colours of printing on the sides. I think it may not have had the highly coloured box lid as per the smaller toys, but this is only from a suspect memory. What I rmember more than anything is the recognition that it had actually been produced, as it was one I had very much wanted when I had the SWORD toys. nb. I once had the SPACEX moonbase too!
Andy B."
So, there you have it. The SWORD Moonbase really did exist! If Andy B saw it in the Sixties then other people must have too. Is it only a matter of time before one turns up in the flesh?
Cheers excitedly,
Woodsy
Artists' impression of the SWORD Moonbase 2009:
Models by Woodsy
Graphics by WOTAN
This is a wonderfully thrilling story, and I for one desperately want it to be true. I shall be daydreaming about this!!!! But it is well established that memory can be misleading, and that the brain can even create memories of things which never happened. No disrespect intended, honest, but I think it is inappropriate to draw any firm conclusions from this memory ... not that I want to rain on anyone's parade (wait, I'm a toad ... rain is cool! ^_^)
ReplyDeleteBut Toad is hugging self, hoping it is an accurate memory.
If it is, and Andy saw a boxed Moonbase, do we think it would be a retail item or possibly a pre-production display item (perhaps explaining the possible lack of a highly coloured box lid)?
I'd like to believe this but from my own experience, I've had at least two people swear blind there was a 'Space Patrol' annual but checking through the trade press at the time, I cannot find it in any listings - and if publishers wanted to sell their product, this is where it would show up! I know the toys trade press figured the Moonbase was around but again from experience I know that items are publicised months in advance but can be pulled because of low advance pre-sales.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the ultimate proof - as with the TV21 Aircraft Carrier - will be in one turning up and being photographed...
yep - im plagued by a fugitive memory. I have been proved correct in the Sub Aircraft Carrier instance and to a lesser degree with the spacex space station, but i have many painful 'memories' from back in the day of stuff glimpsed in shop windows or from department store displays as I was agonisingly pulled away by my parents..
ReplyDeleteThe Nuclear Ferry appeared out of the mists of time so im probably about 85% certain that a MoonBase - or part of one - will appear soon.
Watch this space - Wotan has predicted!
I have "memories" which cannot possibly be true. And I remember a memory you had, Wote, of a cereal toy in a Tony Hancock film which turned out to be quite different from what you recalled. But I need dreams right now (shakes fist at life). I was utterly convinced that the Nuclear Ferry did not exist ... would have taken money on it ... and yet look what happened there!
ReplyDeleteThats very true - the 'flying sub' from the Hancock film, what a disappointment!
ReplyDeleteYou've all got me worried now.
ReplyDeleteBut I do still remember the thought "so they DID make it" whebn I saw the box.
Andy B.
No, don't be worried, Andy. Hold on to that wonderful memory. And please be assured I am not casting any doubt on your veracity. I merely suggest caution in how we interpret your memories.
ReplyDeleteYour "so they DID make it" is very exciting! Maybe you did see it, in which case you were lucky! But memory can play tricks, as had been repeatedly demonstrated. Also it may be that whatever gave you that wonderful "so they DID make it" moment wasn't the longed-for Moonbase but something like it. Just how old were you at the time, as a matter of interest?
Whatever, thanks for this small spark of hope! ^_^
Probably about 13 years
ReplyDelete(I'm getting old...)
Hmm, that's older than I was expecting. I had this vision of you being something like nine or ten, and it would be easy to be mistaken at that age. But thirteen ... I wonder? ...
ReplyDeleteDo you recall what time of year it was? Summer holidays? Christmas?