ANOTHER TWELVE MONTHS OF PROJECT SWORD TOYS

Back from our travels and enjoying perhaps the last hot weather of the British summer [but who can tell these days] my lounging mind now turns to balmy September and the fact that Moonbase will be 11 years old.

Yep, another year on the base has passed like a solar prominence and another twelve months of employment in the real world beckons as the school holidays fade this week once more to grey.

Looking back over the last twelve months from the point of view of toys, it's been one of filling in a few gaps for me personally.

Specifically, gaps in my Project SWORD and related toys collection and principally in the Space Glider department. I'll blog more about this during birthday week starting the 15th September but suffice to say that these new acquisitions bring me much closer to my own personal red-line for my own collection. 

Its hard to know where to stop with any collection and as the blog has shown there were and are many more SWORD-related toys out here than any of us could have guessed way back in 2008. 

Take for instance all the chromed Task Force toys that have slowly dripped out of Ebay, both loose and blister carded. Or the blister carded Japanese Scouts. Who could have known that such hidden gems existed when we set out over a decade past!

For my own part I decided many moons ago to focus on Project SWORD toys and sadly resist the temptation to collect Tri-ang SpaceX. There's simply too much for my wallet to cope with! It's been an unusually good last twelve months for SpaceX toys I've noticed though. Would you agree?

I have veered from this mantra of no SpaceX now and then as its such a brilliant line of space plastic but on the whole my fleet comprises of larger toys, mostly Project SWORD and related makes especially Tai Hing [T in a Circle], Tarheel and Century 21 [non-TV].

Approaching a collection's finish line is a strange feeling. It's been years and years in the making. Maybe 50 years if I go right back to when I first had SWORD toys as a kid back in 1967 when they appeared in the shops. I wonder if I ever thought I might collect these toys in the future with my seven year old mind? I doubt it. Being seven was all about the here and now and I will have played with those toys till the mystery action burnt out!

That's not to say that I didn't 'collect' them at the time back them. Getting one SWORD toy will have lead to wanting another different SWORD toy. These pangs of plastic yearning will have inevitably happened at those peaks of toy exposure, Christmas and the summer holidays on the coast, but maybe also just walking past a toy shop window and maybe even flicking through the Project SWORD Manual or Annual. What wonders were stored away in those pages, what glorious rockets! Did you dream of SWORD toys or see them in shop windows as a kid readers?

My SWORD collection second time round is that odd thing, the adult version bought with my own money. Born of a desire to bag some of that childhood magic fluttering on the rims of our memories, its more intellectual, more meticulous, more planned. Inevitably there is much less play than back in '67 but no less enjoyment. Its just different wouldn't you say?

And so the gaps are now fewer as my SWORD end point approaches. I've ticked everything in the SWORD Manual like I did when I was seven or eight, exceptions inevitably being the Moon Base Play Set and the Nuclear Ferry both then and now [did anyone have a Ferry in 1967/68?].

My only 'wants' now are the important T in a Circle/ Tai Hing Moon Bus, boxed, and perhaps for pudding, a Japanese Apollo Saturn, one of the Sears or Tomy versions: either would do, loose would be fine. I'm not in a hurry though.

I've seen both of these in the last twelve months available for the collector but I can wait. Collecting is all about local conditions: chiefly cash or the lack of it in my case and the Missus and our growing family and what they all need.

Other SWORD collectors around the world will have been pleased this last twelve months I reckon. There has been a steady feed of both loose and boxed SWORD toys on Ebay, both in the UK and the US and encompassing all the three main brands: Century 21, Tarheel and T in a Circle. A few unusual vehicles too like the Tarheel Probe Force One in its memorable photo box bobbed up on the Bay and I wonder if it slotted neatly into a gap in someone's collection.

There have been a few Project SWORD badges on auction these twelve months too. I did a stock take of what I still need but I'll be darned if I can find the list! I made a video of it a couple of years ago so I'll re-watch that one day. I have noticed the prices of these auctioned badges going up though and maybe that's the case not just for SWORD related toys but for all space toys? is that your experience readers?

For those looking farther afield Japan remains an alluring land of eastern promise. I haven't seen any new Glico SWORD miniatures this last year but again, for those willing to try their hand at Yahoo Japan, Noppin and co., online Japanese auctions can offer a chance encounter with golden nuggets like a boxed Space Bird Probe Force 3 if you have to patience, resources and a pinch of luck.

What has your collecting year been like readers? Have you any major wants or stubborn gaps in your fleet?