In the five years of blogging, there have been some great discoveries made. One of the foremost, must be the sighting of the SWORD Nuclear Ferry, back in December 2007. Appearing briefly in Japan, it disappeared again without a trace, until a second one appeared, which was caught and now forms the pride of my own collection. The Ferry has a wonderful backstory, which also came to light over the course of our blogging and besides numerous appearances on packaging and in print, the Ferry was also made by Tri-ang Spacex as part of the ill-fated second series.
I'd managed to discover this dilapidated carded example in Cyprus. Its worth noting the presence of the small pink shuttle, which is a smaller version of the one that sits on the Booster Rocket.
Notice the model lineup on the base of the card.
The Spacex version offers two ways to attach the Passenger shuttle, directly on the front and underslung in the classic fashion. The tiny shuttle can also be fired out of the front of the booster.
The Spacex Ferry is dwarfed by its large SWORD cousin.
Just prior to receiving the actual C21 toy, I had built my own Ferry out of scrap parts and a pipe gasket I found (just down the road from Glenn Field actually!). After I picked up a second, much smaller gasket, I tried to build a smaller Spacex scale ferry too, using an old Nuclear Freighter hull for the front.
Bill, those are some excellent finds. I think it's great when people find missing links to their collections.
ReplyDelete