BARAVELLI BOX ART

This is the box art for the Italian firm Baravelli's Serie Minizero Spaziali Pattuglia Orbitale. The image courtesy of the HäT website. 

I have covered all these model figure sets before on MC but the box art is just so good I'm giving it another whirl.

As most of Baravelli's non-space box art was by Italian artist Gino Palotti so I assume he did the space ones too. Does anyone know for sure?

Baravelli included LP style knockoff astronauts in their space sets. You can clearly see the posed figure pointing at the spaceship. Its LP [rear] and Spacex/ Golden Astronaut [front] 'pointing' equivalents can be seen here in this excellent graphic courtesy of Paul Vreede from his special MC blog post way back in 2009.

The spaceships in the sets tended to be clones of Japanese sci-fi vessels from Ultraman and also the UK's Thunderbirds TV series. The vessel shown on this particular box is based on the Ultra Hawk 3 from the Ultraman/ Ultraseven TV series.

These sets are very collectable and often discussed on model figures fora such as here on Airfix Collecting.

Amongst other things, Baravelli also distributed the Action Jackson 12-inch action doll line in Italy on behalf of toy giants Mego.

Have you any Baravelli figure sets or toys readers?

MYSTERY PLASTIC CATERPILLAR: AN OLD FLAME

About 25 years ago I used to visit the local Wakefield Car Boot Sale here in West Yorkshire. It was the first real place I started to look for vintage toys.

As it was the beginning of me catching the toy bug I was excited as hell. I used to buy all sorts of old toys in those days. It all helped me learn. One such oddment was a hard plastic caterpillar wearing a hat. It would have been around 1991 when I found him in a box of He-Man figures.

I never found out anything more about this caterpillar until I saw the very same one last week mint and carded in Toys R Us! That's a quarter of a century later! 

Turns out it's a birthday candle holder and not really a toy after all. Sometimes cake decorations seem to straddle between the two genres and the best example is of course our chums the LP astronauts, both cake toppers and vintage toy spacemen in one.

So here is the caterpillar I saw this month in a German branch of Toys R Us:

It now joins the a long list of mystery toys I've found which are no longer mysteries. 

Have you got a mystery toy readers?

A HUGE THANK YOU TO SCOOP AND BILL

After a couple of months absence from the blog I would just like to say a heartfelt and massive thank you to Scoop for holding the fort whilst I've been occupied with other things. 

If it wasn't for Scoop's titanic output, all of which has been of the highest quality as per usual, the blog would have withered away.

I would also like to thank Bill for supporting Scoop's watch with his own unique posts.

My full return to the blog may take some time as Summer means summer holidays but I plan to post the odd thing again to add to the fabulous mix being produced by Scoop and aided by Bill.

BOATERIFIC 'KING OF THE SEA'

I've had a bit of a run on Ideal's Boaterific boats lately, and here is my latest purchase, the 'King of the Sea' Cabin Cruiser.

It's another colourful and detailed toy, and in pretty good condition too.

Everything works on it, and apart from a broken stern flag, which appears to have happened in transit it's all minty.

I love the detail inside of the cabin. There's a chair, the ship's wheel and a door to the lower decks. There's even an open one going down to the 'engine' room.

The painted ocean backdrop.

Not bad for a toy that first appeared in 1967.

JERRY DOYLE R.I.P.

Sad to report that the actor and radio show host Jerry Doyle has died aged 60.

He was best known to sci -fi fans as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi in the TV series, Babylon 5.

I was lucky enough to meet the man at a Babylon 5 convention in Blackpool some years ago, and found him a charming and affable person.

Our sincere condolences to his family.

TAKARA SPV

A few photos of my Takara SPV which I've been meaning to post for ages.

It appeared in 2001, and is  a fairly simple, lightweight toy.

It's a slightly smaller toy than the Dinky, Corgi or Vivid versions, but larger than the Konami. 

There are no real features apart from fold-down tracks at the back, but its still a nice little display model as there's plenty of detailing.

GET SMART SPY PEN

This is another of those bits of memorbilia that would have been about in the sixties - a pen that is really an A M radio.

This is the Get Smart version although I suspect there would have probably been variations promoting other sixties spy shows.

It's obviously a simple crystal set and  needs no batteries. It uses a clip to attach to any  metal object in the room to provide the arieal,  but I'd imagine the reception would be a little hit and miss, although the novelty value is what it's about.

I remember an early episode of The Man from UNCLE using a radio transmitter disguised as a cigarette packet using the similar method of attaching the antenna wire to a metal object in the room. That was before UNCLE agents got pen radios!
  

VIVID THUNDERBIRD 5

A few photos of my latest Vivid Thunderbirds Are Go purchase - the Thunderbird 5 toy

While youngsters might think this toy doesn't  have the play value or the sleek lines of the other Thunderbird craft, I reckon its a toy that's gonna be pretty popular with us older fans.

While, the other four rebooted Thunderbird vehicles all resemble their 60's counterparts, the new Thunderbird 5 has it's own distinctive and credible design, perhaps taking part of it's inspiration from the International Space Station.

I certainly like it, and reckon it's my second favourite rebooted Thunderbird, after Thunderbird 2. 

The front of the packaging. The Toy's features are a retractable 'Space Claw', and 'Vehicle and Communication Sounds'.

The rear of the packaging.

THAT MONDAY MORNING FEELING

Roll on the weekend!

SATURDAY MORNING BUGGY RIDES

THE RISE OF THE BAKERY

Some of you Dan Dare fans out there might recall a post I did last August regarding the sad state of The Bakery in Churchtown, Southport, the building that was used as a studio in 1950 by Frank Hampson and his team of artists to produce the first fourteen or so issues of the fondly remembered Eagle comic before they moved to Epsom.

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/churchtown-where-eagle-landed.html

These were some photos I took in May 2015 of the old lean-to building looking extremely dilapidated.

It pretty much looked like it was ready to fall down at that point. However, what a difference a year makes.

This is the old bakery now, totally refurbished and looking better than what it did in 1950.

I imagine the space-faring Son of Southport would give the thumbs up to this.

Shoot to Thrill

Its a little off topic for Moonbase, but I know there are several shutterbugs amongst our readership and editorial team, so I just thought I would pop this little note out there, to see if anyone might be interested in submitting...  Black Market Re-View is a digital arts magazine, run via Edge Hill University, by a team of alumni and students. Now in its second successful issue, BMR is looking for submissions of fiction, criticism, poetry, art and photography. We have seen some outstanding work featured on the blog over the years from readers across many genres and myself and Woodsy have dabbled in the science fiction epic stories, so hopefully we may have inspired our readership to pick up the pen or press the shutter! Check out the submission guidelines and send in your work, here:

http://blackmarketre-view.weebly.com/submissions.html

SUMMER SUN

As the UK is having the odd day of reasonable sunshine, the lazy robots at Moonbase Central are catching some rays, but don't worry normal service will be resumed soon once the rain's back (which in Britain is never far away )

IDEAL BOATERIFIC 'BARRACUDA'

Some photos of my latest Boaterific find, a 'Barracuda' Sport Fisherman boat in fine condition with no bits missing as far as I can tell.

Like the other boats in the range there's plenty of detail filling the deck, in particular the two long outriggers, which  are designed to aid stability to the boat in rough seas., Not being a fisherman myself, I made the mistake of thinking they were just heavy duty fishing poles. Thanks to an anonymous comment I'm a bit more savvy on that point.

 

The bow has a tiny 'Ideal' flag which I kinda think is a nice touch.

The Union Flag flies at the stern.

A view of the top of the deck.

The painted backdrop.