SPUTNIK: IS IT THE RUSSIAN ALIEN?

Splat in the USSR!

What do you think?

PULL THE PIN AND RUN!

Saw this on an old listing and thought, wow, I had one of those in the Sixties!

A vintage cap-firing plastic toy hand grenade, together with a handy watch and caps provided.

There wasn't really anything from the army I didn't have as a toy. If I didn't have it then my Action Man did!

I doubt toy hand grenades would be acceptable these days, relegated to the prohibited footlocker along with chocolate cigarettes and clackers.

THE LOST REDLINE

I always adored the sleek car on the Hot Wheels artwork.

I often wondered what it was and why I din't have it as a kid.

Well, here it is!

The custom Otto.

You can read all about the fascinating story of the 'lost redline' on the hot wheels collectors forum.

https://forums.hotwheelscollectors.mattel.com/hwcblog/news/custom-otto-is-back-by-collector-request-r917/#articleJump

What do you think?

ZERO-X: PLANET OF BONES ON ANDERSON ENTERTAINMENT

Check out this cool multi-part TV21 strip story about our fave mars ship Zero-X on the Gerry Anderson Official site via You Tube.

Art by Mike Noble no less!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VG3bywwQUs

What do you think?

Crescent Moon

Sixty years ago, Kelloggs included a neat little premium in their Rice Krispie cereal, nine whole years before the Moon Landing, of a set of pioneering lunar spacemen. The six figures were made by toy soldier manufacturer, Crescent and were single piece colour plastic mouldings with detachable transparent bubble helmets, which bear a strong resemblance to early designs suggested by Arthur C Clarke in his book 'The Exploration of Space'.

original examples

The six figures are rarely found with the original helmets and are often missing parts of the soft plastic moulding, such as the minesweeper attachment or the U.N banner. As a keen collector of cereal premiums and spacemen, I managed to get a set of these figures, both at a toy fair and via ebay. Although I have had them for some time, when I came upon two other figures this week in a lot of other space toys, I realised that I would be able to fashion replacement helmets for the team from some highlighter markers that I had picked up recently. With a little cutting to shorten them, the caps fitted beautifully and look remarkably similar to the original helmets.

THE BEACH COMBER TOY CAR

When I first saw this on an online sale I thought it was a Morgan toy car.

Closer inspection of the pictures lead me to the outboard motor!

Yes, its a boat stuffed into a car!

How cool is that!

The 2 in 1 Land Sea Beach Comber!

What do you think?

SILLY SOAP ANYONE?

I mentioned Silly Soap the other day.

I'm sure I recall something like that. Here it is as featured online. Soap in a spray can.

I could be wrong. This could just be my mind playing tricks on me.

For example, there were other silly products like silly string, which you can still get.

And then there's Crazy Foam!

My memories a bit like crazy foam drying up. I just can't decide if I really did have any of these as a kid in the UK in the Sixties.

Did you?

MORE VINTAGE SPANISH TOYS

A clip of Spanish toy factory work in 1978 on You Tube. What do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY3gQfv6faY

A QUICK LOOK AT THE DIAMOND SELECT BLACK HOLE FIGURES

Being a Black Hole film fan I’ve finally managed to get my hands on the two sets of Diamond Select Black Hole figures.

These figures apparently sold out at pre-order stage so I’m double chuffed.

I’ll do a proper review in the fullness of time, but just looking at them in their bubble packs I can see there’s plenty of accessories and a display plinth for each set. 

Maximilian comes with a black circular stand giving the impression the robot is hovering, while V.I.N.Cent and B.O.B. come with separate stands and a diorama.

I understand that if these sets sell well, Diamond Select may release more Black Hole figures, so my fingers are crossed for that.

DURHAM'S GREEN TOY MONSTER

When I saw this walking green monster by Durham toys I thought, hmmm, I've seen something like that before.

A book on model kits sprang to mind and then Lindberg.

Lindberg's monster kits.

here they are as they appear on the amazing Universal Monster Army site.

Well, maybe not a match but I think Durham and Lindberg dipped into the same zany pool to come up with the wacky monsters.

What do you think?

*

WOTAN Wades in:

Rather than create a new post, I just thought i'd tag onto this one. It looks to me like these models are influenced by Native American ceremonial masks and costume. Edward S. Curtis spent several years documenting the North American Indian in a series of photographs and ethnology studies and his work is probably the most thorough study of long vanished tribes. But look at the similarity in some of these designs. http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/curtis/toc.cgi

BATTLING TOPS

I got given this original Battling Tops game by a customer who was clearing out their garage and were about to throw it away.

Generally speaking, I don’t have much interest in playing board games, but I do find myself drawn to the packaging, especially if it’s got some nostalgic painted artwork.

The game, made by the Ideal toy company, originally appeared in 1968. It was invented by Eddy Goldfarb, who also created the ‘Yakity Yak Talking Teeth’ wind-up toy, KerPlunk and Stompers to name but a few.  He also designed spy gadgets for ‘The Girl from UNCLE’ TV series.

Over time Battling Tops has had repackaging and rebranding make overs, including different coloured plastic arenas, and tops. Around 1975 it was re-named The Battling Gladiators with a different coloured plastic playing arena. 

In 1977, Ideal repackaged the game and called it Battling Spaceships, incorporating it into their S.T.A.R. Team toy range. This range was particularly notable as Ideal simply gave some of their already existing toys a ‘Star Wars’ make over to cash in the film. Lucasfilms famously sued and lost the case.

The object of the game is points are gained by the last top standing in each bout, and the first player to reach ten points is the winner.

Each top has a different name – Hurricane Hank; Dizzy Dan; Super Sam; Tricky Nicky; Smarty Smitty (later replaced with Cyclone Steve); and Twirling Tim – and come in six colours – blue; red; white; yellow; orange; and green. (I’m missing a green top and some scoring pegs). Only four can enter the Battling Top Arena at any one time, spun into action by the Battling Top puller.

Marx bought the rights to the game in 1982, but it was discontinued towards the end of the eighties.

However, you can’t keep a Battling Top down as Mattel re-introduced the game in 2003.

TROLL TRACY ISLAND

Here's once again the beautiful Tracy Island toy set by Troll. 

This time a video on You Tube by Richard K.

It really is a thing of beauty.

Do you agree?

SPECTRE ON TV

I note that the Bond film, Spectre is being shown on TV this evening, and even though I’ve got it on Blu-ray I’ll still tune in to watch it with a pint of ‘Thatcher’s’.  Hopefully, next Saturday night my local pub should be open and I can get back to some proper face to face socialising over a beer.

Here’s my Corgi ‘Spectre’ set which I actually bought a few years ago at the ‘Bond in Motion’ exhibition in London. Not particularly exclusive but nice to own. I was hoping to return this spring, to check out the actual cars on display used in the upcoming Bond film, ‘No Time To Die’, but the coronavirus epidemic has put paid to that for the foreseeable future.

But I’ll remain optimistic, and if things continue to improve maybe I’ll get the chance to take a trip to the Smoke later in the year.

Cheers

Spin Doctor

My fascination with toy spinning tops continues and the latest addition to the fold is this neat plastic Triang model. About 3" in diameter, its a lot smaller than its tin cousin, but spins beautifully. Slots in the side make it hum as it leaves the handle, with a ghostly whistling sound.

The other larger tops are mostly tin and around 4" diameter. Each hums at a different pitch, with a pleasant sound like the wind in telegraph wires.

The other yellow Triang model is much earlier, probably late fifties and is almost spherical in shape. The winding handle is wooden as opposed to tinplate like the other tin tops.

The remainder of the top collection all come from crackers with some minor exceptions and are generally quite small. The pink and yellow globular one is the type which mysteriously inverts itself, mid spin and stands on its handle.

Similar in design to the Triang plastic top is this unbranded (possibly Merit) top. About 3.5" in diameter, all plastic, it has the usual slots in the edge, but is also fitted with plastic 'reeds' in the lower half, so that when it leaves the winder, it sounds like a small high pitched mouth organ. Tops like this would usually be sold with an optional satellite that would fly off using the same winder.

Next up is a traditional cat iron Beigoma from Japan. Beigoma is an ancient top design and takes time and skill to master the throw. https://www.tofugu.com/japan/beigoma-japanese-tops/

Two more plastic varieties, an air powered gyro top, launched by blowing down a straw into a turbine inside the top and a small magnetic space station type top that balances on a metal base.

The above top, shaped a little like a chinese hat, is a plastic top sheathed in thin metal, with a very rounded point beneath. It is well balanced and spins really well.

The Dreidel is a traditional jewish game played at Hannukah and has a letter on each of its four faces, which relate to a saying connected with the great Diaspora. Dreidel come in many sizes and some modern versions contain smaller novelties in four compartments. This is a miniature metal version from Israel. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/

Finally, the 'Precision' spinning top. With the recent fad for stress alleviating gadgets like fidget spinners and other gimmicks, there appeared finely balanced metal tops which can rotate unassisted for 5 minutes at a time. This tiny, but heavy top will spin so well, that it barely appears to be moving when at full acceleration.