Collecting Countdown

Possibly the very first space toy I remember getting was a Marx Rocket Launcher like the one above. Well sort of, because the one I had was reversed in colour with a blue missile body and orange/red base. The one featured above is a later variation with a delta missile/plane on it, which I did actually own as a boy too - but the very first one was the same basic design but with a finned missile on it.

Its a cracking little toy too, the crank handle elevated the cold war style gantry and the rocket blasted off at least 30 feet - i recall as a child that nearly everything had rockets and missiles, bullets and bombs and they were all seriously powerful. This one shown here is no exception. I picked it up inexpensively on ebay and it was a real buzz to line up a battalion of star wars figures with my eight year old son, Will and take turns blasting them with the rocket plane! Great fun.

If memory serves, a variation of this toy was offered as a 'send-away' premium on cereal in the sixties - Sugar Puffs maybe ?