ACTION STATIONS! SKY 8 TOY RE-SURFACING!

Here is another treat from the bottomless boxes loaned to me by the ever-generous SWORDGrasshopper: the legendary SKY 8 UFO submarine toy from Japan'

Because I think it's awesome I've mentioned it many times on the blog including as recently as March 2015. Inspired by UFO in Japan's Bokura magazine, it was described in Dennis Nicholson's 'Bible', his guide to Gerry Anderson Merchandise in 1994, where I first came across this wonderful toy.

In Japan, during the late Sixties, it was sold in shops on this large card display, which held 12 bubble carded toys: 3 of each in 3 different colour schemes: silver and green, all brown and silver and blue. Each toy had a drawing below it on the header card. You can see one top left, a sort of speedboat.

The fantastic header of the display depicts the Sky 8 in full underwater battle mode, there appears to be no mention of UFO. The makers' logo is a leopard with lettering in the far left bottom corner.

Each Sky 8 came on on individual stapled bubble card on which were instructions beneath the toy itself. The word SHADO appeared along the sides of the toy, giving it its only link to UFO.

Out of the bubble the Sky 8 is a beautiful miniature plastic toy typical of the attention to detail the Japanese are famous for. On the top are two torpedoes visible.

At the rear is a working propeller and on the undercarriage a retractable stabilizer. The number 8 can also be seen below the conning tower.

The instructions below the toy show various firing points for the missiles.

Here's a missile inserted for firing in the conning tower of a Sky 8 with a different colour scheme.

All that remains for me now is to understand the Japanese instructions and test fire the missiles, pull out the stabilizer and try out the propeller. For that I will turn to video. Watch this space!

[all pictures: Bill Bulloch except the final one which is courtesy of Nobo Land]