VINTAGE SMORGASBORD OF THUNDERBIRDS AND THE SPECTRUM POP GROUP

Here's a smorgasbord of odds and sods I've seen online this year. Think of the music to the Gallery on Vision On when browsing through!

Above: Trio of red space vehicles including a neat clockwork Space Car with a light green dome. Not sure if I've seen a red one before.

Above are a set of Dutch Thunderbirds paper cigar bands I recently auctioned on the Bay. I recall these from my youth although I din't smoke cigars. Far too young! My Dad must have had them. For some reason I'm seeing plastic cigars in my mind too. Did they come on them too?

Above is a catalogue page showing various Tomy toys and intriguingly what looks like a T in a Circle Space Rocket?

Above is the front page of MOON CITY, a horror strip from the seminal CREEPY magazine of the 1960's. I treated myself to a modern Dark Horse bound collection of the first half dozen comics a coupla years ago and Moon City is in there and choc-full of cool space vehicles like this Scramble Bug style digger and a Nuclear Ferry!

Above is a medley of pocket money toys including the red knife, which I definitely had as a kid. For some reason I recall it being from a toy camping or a cowboy set. What is the design?

Above is a Spanish record from the Andersonised pop group The Spectrum. Dressed in Captain Scarlet show uniforms, we saw the Spectrum much earlier on the blog in this Century 21 staff portrait courtesy of Alan Shubrook. Anyone heard their songs?

GRASS CHUTE

Summer reminds me of long lazy days off school for the six week summer break when I was a kid. I spent hours in the garden with my mates.

One of the many summer activities we got up to was grass chute. It sounds strange but basically we built a sloped wooden chute down the small hill at the top of our garden, which we piled cut grass onto. Using brooms and poles we then pushed the grass down the chute into a barrow waiting at the bottom. Cut grass farming really! ha ha. Great fun!

What did you and your childhood mates get up to in Summer readers?

you can just make out the slope at the top

HAIL TO THE CHIEF

I'm a huge fan of videogames and have been ever since I played Galaxians on an arcade cabinet in a pub basement. Shortly after that, the Commodore Amiga 16bit computers arrived and from that moment, I was truly hooked. Since then, I've moved on through Playstation 1 to 3, Wii and Xbox, marvelling at each step as the graphics and story have evolved.

Playstation has always been my favourite platform, but in order to follow certain games, it was necessary to buy into the xbox system too. Halo has been a firm favourite since the early days and I played its predecessor Marathon on the Mac, years before. Now on its sixth and soon to be seventh incarnation, the exploits of surgically and genetically enhanced super soldier 'Master Chief' have been enthralling. Naturally, the games spawned toy spin offs and one of the more interesting ones is a series of lego like toys from Mega Bloks. Mega Bloks are a range of sub standard building bricks, which attempt to combine action features with lego bricks, in dungeons and dragons, pirates and now Halo settings. Ordinarily, I wouldn't buy Mega Bloks if you put a gun to my head, they are so badly made, but as part of the franchise, they issued a series of toys based on the brick vehicles,

Part plastic and part diecast, the Scorpion Tank is around five inches long and highly manoeverable, with running treads and articulated tracks. It comes with four figures, one of which is a metal Master Chief, scaled to a similar dimension to the Apollo Moon Exploring aliens.

To tie in with the standard brick, the top of the vehicle is studded with a pattern like a standard brick, but smaller and not compatible with the actual bricks, a ridiculous inclusion!

The figures are Spartan, Covenant Grunt and Covenant Elite, plus the chrome Master Chief.

SPACE RAGE

NASA's Curiosity is still trundling around Mars on its epic journey across the Red Planet but you wouldn't know judging by the media here in the UK. There's zero coverage. Nothing, Nada. The same goes for non-existent public interest, particularly among the young.

I had thought that we were on the cusp of a new Space Age but it seems to have stalled. The World appears to be once again mired in countless endless terrestrial squabbles. Its a wonder NASA, ESA and other Space Agencies get anything done at all in this depressingly pot-bound climate. I hope they carry on regardless.

What do you think readers? Am I just space raging?

KONAMI S.I.D.

Getting back to  my  UFO theme here's the Space Intruder Detector, better known as SID. 

Another lovely detailed miniature from the Konami range.

This was available in a Premium Pack which came with either a Rescue Eagle or Fireball XL5, both of which were hidden so you never knew which you'd get.

Still Shut

Had another look in that shop window today, still closed up, which is a shame. Managed to get a couple of photos of items near the front of a side window, maybe it'll be open at the weekend!

DOUBLE DISC

Picked up this Blue Box  type  saucer friction drive toy a while back. It came all the way from Hungary. Not sure of its pedigree.  It doesn't have anything on the base, and the friction drive is slightly different to the Blue Box one. Anyone got this version or ideas about it?

MANTA SOAR

I dunno, something about this Manta Force spaceship just reminds me of the Project SWORD Dyna Soar Glider. Maybe its an updated imagining of the X-Plane. The SpaceX Golden Astronaut adds to the atmosphere. Top pic courtesy of the amiable Bill Bulloch. Do any later toys remind you of SWORD vehicles readers?

"But the shop was shut.."

How many times have I had to say that, after seeing an exciting toy in a shop window and gone to buy it. Saw these today in Southport, but alas, couldn't buy them...

THE SPANISH CRICKET: MOLTO JEEP MILITAR

Most SWORD and Anderson collectors will know MOLTO of Spain from their fabulous Three in One boxed set of Thunderbirds vehicles similar to JR21 toys.

Less well known is their JEEP MILITAR pictured here. A lovely looking thing, it is clearly from the same design as the SpaceX Cricket. Its most likely based on one of the earlier British versions such as the Codeg one beautifully photographed by Scoop in 2011 . What do you think readers? Anyone know the timeline of these cricket-style toys?

SPANISH GALAXIAS BOOSTER

I do love a good Booster rocket and here are some cool Valigursky fuel cells on this Spanish space pistol box art. Do you know of any more Booster Rocket art?

KEVIN'S SCRATCH SPACEX NEEDLE PROBE

Kevin D's amazing model SpaceX Needle Probe built from scratch. What do you think readers?

LAKES, CARS AND JOHNNY SPEED

We have just returned from a mini-break in the English Lake District. With its beautiful mountains and streams, it was food for the soul and then some! Easily one of my favourite places.

En route whilst crossing the hills we saw two fighter jets zooming low across the valley, a sight we don't often see in our urban neck of the woods. There were many classic cars on the road as well including a whole convoy of three-wheelers like Messerschmidts and Citroens.

Another car of note was a Johnny Speed toy by Topper toys. Priced at £50 loose it beyond my budget but it was a thrill to see this old friend again as I had one as a kid. I'd forgotten just how big this plastic E-type jag was!

Alas the vehicular highlight of the area, the Cars of the Stars museum in Keswick, was shut and has been for a while. I visited it once before and the owner had spared no expense in tracking down TV and film cars like the original Batmobile, James Bond's Aston Martin and even a full size FAB 1. A real shame the collection has been sold off.

Are there any TV or film cars and vehicles on show near you readers?

TV21 PROJECT SWORD STORY: MESSAGE FOR HANCOCK

June 22 1968

SPACEX TOYS IN MECCANO MAGAZINE 1970

Sometime ago reader Sean sent me this photo of an article about SpaceX toys from Meccano magazine January 1970.