The moondust has settled and like a mini-SWORDcon, the Moonbase Central get-together this past weekend still lingers in the memory like the smell of leftover curry in the fridge. It was a great feeling displaying my toy collection for fellow bloggers Bill and Scoop and sharing ideas, notes and theories with each other about our favourite vintage toys. I don't really go to proper conventions but I imagine its a similar feeling. At its simplest I suppose, its adults trying to recapture the magic of their childhoods.
Here are a just a few of the ideas, jottings and revelations we discussed:
1. 21 Toys? We discussed my theory that the Moon Base Play Set would have been the planned 21st toy in the SWORD line. i.e. 21 toys by Century 21. Which leads neatly to.......
2. Phase 2? This phrase appears on the Nuclear Ferry box [ on loan to me ] but what did Century 21 have in mind? We surmised that it may be linked to a shift from the SOLO SWORD comic strip to the TV21 SWORD text stories. Or was it a later batch of toys but this advert in TV21 containing the same phrase, Phase 2, shows the Apollo Saturn! Bill theorised that Phase 2 might have been the list of toys appearing on the small Specification sheet in the three Scout boxes, which we think came out later than the other toys. Can the Official Manual shed any light on the subject? As we know, SWORD's relative, SpaceX. also had a SpaceX II series. Phase 2 needs a lot more research!
3. Who owned SOLO? another revelation of mine, where my lack of knowledge about comics exploded in my face, this time whilst eating a poppadom I seem to recall! Scoop told me that SOLO comics were the property of Century 21. Doh! I didn't know that!
4. Does the Moon Base Set exist? a hot potato among all SWORD collectors, was the set ever made and does this mythical beast still exist now? Its in the SWORD Official Manual. Bill and Scoop had seen virtually every space toy known to man in shop windows around the North West of England during the Sixties, including the JR21 Stingray Aircraft Carrier, but never the Moon Base Set. I read out some old correspondence from Dennis Nicholson of Australia from the late 1990's and Dennis had definately seen a Moon Base Set! Andy B has seen one too I think and there's talk of two prototypes having been made in the Sixties - so the dream continues......
5. The Gerry Anderson Memorabilia Guide is 20 years old this year. Yes, Dennis, mentioned above, was doing what we're all trying to do 20 years ago! And what a result, his book is the 'bible' and continues to give me and many others pleasure and a few surprises even after two decades of reading it! Fab job Dennis! We salute you!
6. Where have they gone? We saluted the pioneers of our hobby and the beginnings of Anderson fandom. Chris Leach was the pioneering author of the late 1970's/80's fanzine Anderpup, creator of STARWATCH and STARGUARD and inventor of early Anderson conventions and an appreciation society but what happened to him? As it turned out Scoop had actually worked on a publishing project called QUESTRON with Chris in the Eighties!
Another frontier spirit was Brendan Sheehan, co-editor of SIG fanzine, along with the pioneer par excellence David Nightengale, in its very early days. Brendan left SIG quite early on and I'd recently read his parting editorial in the magazine and found it very moving. What happened to Brendan? [ readers, who were the Anderson fandom pioneers in your country? I'd love to know]
7. Social Media. In a fast changing cyber-world of social media, where everything happens twice as instantly as the last time you looked, can a blog like this still have a place? As we get fewer and fewer comments and only one new 'follower' in the last year, is blogging like this old-hat? Forums, You Tube, Instagram and Facebook all offer new platforms for collectors and Anderson fans and we hotly debated the pros and cons of all of them. I'm pleased to say that the blog lives on!
8. Doncaster Toy Fair: prices seen: Tarheel Moon Prospector £100, Century 21 Dyna Soar £140, Project SWORD Annual £25 and carded SpaceX Pleasure Cruiser £10. Are these typical?
Any views, comments, thoughts about any of these ruminations, which you may have, then please join in and let us know readers.
~Pleased the weekend went well, though the prices at the toyfair would have dismayed me.
ReplyDeleteI hope you do still think the blog relevant, Woodsy, as its the only one I actually "follow" and check most days.
I would have thought you must be getting a lot of visitors, even if not all register as followers.
I'm still bemused about the SWORD moonbase- I do recall seeing one, and until you expressed surprise, thought no more about it!
Oh, and I do remember the Scouts coming out quite a bit later than the first SWORD toys.
ReplyDeleteI struggle to attract comments too, I put it down to the fact I must be getting it right!!!! Also, my traffic is rising in proportion to the comment-fall off?
ReplyDeleteThere will always be a place for a good single-issue blog, as everything is in one place, I thought about a Facebook page, but stuff drops of the bottom in hours, or days, never to be seen again, with a blog, it's all still there somewhere if people want it, and Google will help them find it. It's all about the tags, and Google doesn't rate untagged Facebook stuff!
Keep it up, I'm still watching!
The blog is always my first port of call, Woodsy. As H Ford so aptly put it: if it works, don't fix it. All those anti-social media you mention are ever so shallow repositories of mere digital ephemera. No depth, no meaning, and soon replaced by a next fad that's even worse (I have yet to see the point of pinterest f ex).
ReplyDeleteJust keep up the good work!
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Paul
Thanks for all the positive comments guys, it means a lot. You've put my mind at rest and Scoops and Bill's too I'm sure. We'll just keep on doing what we're doing!
ReplyDeleteWoodsy, I know how you're feeling. Sometimes I wonder if it worth it but the bottom line is I do it for fun and to share what little I know. Although I don't comment much on any blog I read a lot of the 'Cool' checks are from me :-) As for comments, for me personally I certainly do welcome them but don't actively seek them either. that's just me. As for that whole 'follower' thing - it's useless except as a metric for some Blogger.com employees performance report:
ReplyDelete"Joe Blow oversaw 4k blogs having a total of 12.5k followers read in 40 countries and sustaining a daily average viewership of 10k readers"
I turned that junk off over a year ago. If you want to 'follow' a blog, save it to your favorites bar.
At least that's my way of thinking.