Shaqui's mention of Freeman's catalogues in the last post sparked off all sorts of memories of leafing through my families' copies of Kays, Grattans, Freemans and GUS! As thick as the Yellow Pages they were crammed with everything the Sixties and Seventies family could possibley want - clothes, clocks, zippo lighters and lovely boxes of Beech's Chocolate Brazils! You'd think there'd be hundreds of images of old British catalogues online but I could hardly find any [unlike the fab US Wishbook archive]. In fact looking for old Christmas Chocolate Selection Boxes - Cadbury's, Rowntrees, that sort of thing - has been the hardest google I've done and I've given up! Couldn't find anything! C'mon, we need Sixcties and Seventies Selection Box images and stories and/or the same for Catalogues!
[PS.I have to ask, does anyone remember seeing SWORD or SPACEX in old catalogues?]
I would venture that the individual SpaceX toys were too 'small' to appear in catalogues or the trade press, although I think (and Philotoadia will back me up on this) the Superset was advertised in the trade press, and has a photocopy somewhere. I think it has to be considered that hundreds of toys were on the market, and mail order catalogues would usually only have the tip of the iceberg - the guaranteed sellers.
ReplyDeleteYears ago I wrote to Richard Lines about Spacex, and he was kind enough to check his full collection of Triang catalogues but found no Spacex in them anywhere. Since then Philotoadia did find a reference of a toy trade magazine having received a leaflet that did include them (or a mention at least), but try and find a copy of that after all these years... I'm still on the lookout for UK wholesale catalogues/lists that would contain Spacex. No idea about Sword, sorry.
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