Mo' Molab

This post has been a long time coming and is probably not really ready to roll even now. The problem has been that the bulk of the information I will present was shared with me by ubercollector and premium expert Mike Speth aka Astronit, who I have not been able to contact for some time, largely due to his work schedule and other pressing issues he was faced with. So if your're reading this Mike, please feel free to correct me. Shortly after I started blogging, I got in touch with Mike with various queries about premiums and he was a mine of information. One of the biggest thorns in my side had always been the Kelloggs Space Age premiums and their background, and Mike kindly illuminated their story for me in a series of emails accompanied by some amazing pictures. Some of the pictures copyright and credit belong to third parties and this is where my reticence to post them lay.

I had first come across the Molab as one of six small kits made available in Sugar Smacks around July, 1969. I was always a fan of moon buggies etc and was overjoyed when I got the Molab in the first box of cereal I opened. Unfortunately, I wouldn't eat the sugary rubbish itself and I only ever got another two chances, one of which revealed the atlas rocket and one final one got me the transporter. At the time I didn't know that the set contained more models than the UK release as this japanese box art shows.

As I am focussing on the Molab at this point, i'll disregard the other kits for now and revisit them later. At some point during the succeeding years, I came across an illustration of a 'molab' on a book cover, bright red and unmistakably the same vehicle. This version painted by Alex Schomburg appears on a book dated 1953 and would appear to be the earliest appearance of the vehicle. The Spacex version, which I came across probably about 1972/73, follows this design closely.

However, when I asked Mike about the original and background of the Molab he told me - 


"The Space Age set came out in 1970 and all the mold pieces were designed by Stan Barton.  The actual craft designs for the vehicles were done by NASA.  The molds are still in use and you can get them from Mexico but the plastic is not as good as original R&L. Stan’s original models were made of wood and photographed in B&W to sell the concept to Kellogg’s.  Also is a scan of the page from Craig’s first book where all the pictures were his line drawing."

Stan apparently referred to the Molab as a 'space shuttle' and was quoted as having 'dreamed it up', but the general outline clearly reflects Schomburgs design of some 20 years previously. The other designs are easily recognisable as NASA concepts, apart from perhaps the Rocket Transporter, which could easily feature in Thunderbirds. 

 To blow my mind even further though, Mike pointed out that the R & L kits appeared again in another form, a set of all the collected models called Diko-Rama.

 This spanish set featured all the kits together with a card backdrop and was sold at retail, rather than being offered as a premium. The set included 12 individual kits, with duplicates of some of the models and the buyer was encouraged to paint each one after making it up.

Personally, I prefer the plain coloured plastic myself and although I did actually paint my original green Molab and add an american flag decal, it was only because it had been battered and repaired so many times over the years.. I eventually managed to replace it and find the missing models from my collection in ebay Australia.

As a background to cereal collecting and a good source of info on the range of R & L premiums, Mike recommended Craig Halls book BREAKFAST BARONS CEREAL CRITTERS AND THE ROSENHAIN AND LIPMANN LEGACY - from which several of these photos are taken.


And finally, part of the reason that this post has appeared now was that after Andy sent me his photo of his premium collection, I was contacted with a request to use the pic of my Molab in a blog post on the actual Space Race. Also I had been mulling over something I might use as a subject for a painting I wanted to do to experiment with oils, the resultant illustration sits at the head of this already long article...