A tenuous connection to the Apollo Moon Exploring articles we posted earlier, this 1980's Lunar Landscape set is made by Dekker Toys of London. The connection being, that contemporary with this release was a space set with a pvc playmat and remoulds of some of the more common APEX toys such as the atlas rocket and gantry, bubble car and gemini capsule. Presumably, this playset must have been from the same range and offered four large vac-formed moonscapes (each different) and would have originally come with pots of paint and a brush. As you can see, the paints have been used, rather enthusiastically on the plastic moonscapes, but all four and the box have survived rather well to this day. I picked these up on ebay this last week, hoping they may have contained the same design of moonscape as appeared in the big Spacex Superset, but all four are simple smoothly cratered landscapes.
If the date was ever in doubt, the box art clearly puts the set at about 1979/80 due to the inclusion of the Mego Buck Rogers and Black Hole figures, Airfix Hawk model (incorrectly built!) and a small Hasegawa Egg Shuttle, which I also bought at the time. So now all I need to do is get the paints out and put a more realistic finish on the 'scapes!
Very cool find Wotan! Fascinating to see the box art choice of these toy characters & ship borrowed...just borrowed. Dr. Hans Rienhard from the Black Hole is stealing the show in his bright red jump-suit.
ReplyDeleteGreat looking toy. Not too different from a similar play environment Mattel made for MAJOR MATT MASON alntough that was vinyl with 'puff plastic' craters. I think this is actually closer to the rare as you like Palitoy ACTION MAN Moonscape that I have only ever seen twice. Last time was at the big ACTION MAN convention at Wembley about 20 years back. Prior to that was about as long before that in a toy shop window on a rainy day on holiday in Margate.
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