I do love a good toy catalogue. Its like a little time capsule from back in the day which can evoke such pleasant memories from my childhood and at the same time, real pangs of regret for all the goodies which slipped out of Santas sleigh as he landed on the neighbours roof..
Here is a leaflet from Airfix - probably 1969 or 70, with a high proportion of Cragstan products, including one of my favourite and most unusual toys, the
Americus Moon Buggy. Another oddity is the Water Rocket - essentially a giant plastic syringe in the shape of a Saturn 5, which squirted water. I had one of these as a kid and although it looked great, hydrodynamics weren't taken into account during the design process and it was almost impossible to push the plunger and shoot the water when you're a seven year old kid as the hole in the end of the rocket was tiny!
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| Water Rocket ? Pfft. Arrowcopter - AWESOME! |
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| Moon Race anyone ? |
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| Diving Sub - Baking Powder a-go-go |
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| Betta Bilda Rocket again |
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| These werent the droids i was looking for |
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| SPIN OUT! Groovy Packaging |
Love those old army toys--and the baking soda sub takes me back!
ReplyDeletethe sub was actually quite good too!
ReplyDeleteStill got al the army stuff - yay - carpet wars!
Beautiful catalogue! Takes me right back. Carpet Wars - bring 'em on!
ReplyDeleteCheers, Bill. As you say, much of the 1970 range was sourced by Airfix from Cragstan, but there are still some Airfix originals such as the Red Indian set, the packaging of which looks to be unchanged from the early 1950s.
ReplyDeleteSean
I'm amazed - never knew Airfix did so much more than model kits. Yet I recognise one of the Wild Wings helicopters as something I once had. As well as the ready-made Higgins boat and GMC truck (the latter should still be around somewhere). But the majority of what's on those pages is new to me.
ReplyDeleteAs to Cragstan, afaik that company didn't manufacture anything, just sourced toys from anywhere. The Cragstan diecast cars were most likely made by Gamda Koor of Israel, judging by a few Cragstan toy Mustangs I have in my collection.
(speaking of which, Wote, could I ask you for a blow-up of the larger red and blue Mustangs? I think I have the red one, but not the blue, and I'd love to have a closer look at the box)
Cheers
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Paul
Airfix also sold a (I think 12 inch) Farrah Fawcett-Majors doll.
ReplyDeleteAirfix FN Rifle. Awesome. Very fragile though, barrel snapped off easily.
ReplyDelete