SLIM PICKINGS AT CAS CAR BOOT

After being laid up for three days with yet another cold I ventured into the daylight today for the annual May Bank Holiday car boot sale at Cas Rugby Club.

Amidst the usual stalls of modern flotsam there was the occasional vintage toy and even one vintage toy stand. 

There were a number of old die-casts, hundreds of loose Malaysian Hot Wheels, loads of boxed Yesteryear, a large plastic Tonka saloon [I didn't know they did plastic] and a Lone Star Tuf Toy truck.

On the vintage stall I saw a boxed Gama tinplate train track, a Johnny West figure by Marx [the stall-holder informed me that Marx had wanted to call him John Wayne! is that true?], a mint Evel Knevel figure with bike and a mint A-Team Hannibal figure, the larger version.

Probably of most interest to Gerry Anderson fans would have been the loose blue Dinky Eagle from Space 1999. Minus its central 'crate', everything else was in order and the release catch worked just fine. A snip for someone at ten pounds.

Not me though I'm afraid. As I'm saving for my retirement I'm as tight as Titus Groan these days and only the most modest of prices can tempt me to withdraw metal from my pocket.

So, for the embarrassingly small sum of 80p I purchased two items: a totally mint big box VHS videocassette of Raid on Entebbe on the Video Movie label and an excellent copy of the How and Why Wonder Book of Planets and Interplanetary Travel.

The How and Why book is one of the classic range from the Sixties. My favourites as a kid were the ones on Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Mammals. This one from the car boot is softback, almost like a magazine and is the Transworld re-issue from 1970 priced at 4 shillings.

It contains an article about NASA's proposed Project Ranger.

Project Ranger included the Moon Prospector no less!

This drawing is by Denny McMains the book's illustrator. 

Did this appear in the original 1960 first edition either in the US or the UK anyone?