CAPTION NEEDED!

 

I had to chuckle when this popped up on my ebay search for Golden Astronaut!

It needs a caption readers!

SIXTEEN 12 MICRO V.I.P. EAGLE

My final set of photos featuring the prototype Sixteen 12 Micro Eagle sets, this time showing the V.I.P. Eagle. Like the others in the set, it's 51/2" long, with detachable V.I.P. Pod, aluminium engine bells, and comes with a tiny in-scale Moonbase Alpha Moonbuggy. The light & sound 16/12 Moonbase Alpha Launch Pad is sold separately. As I've mentioned in my previous Micro Eagle posts, the models are 3D printed prototypes, so finer details,and out of line engine bells and leg pods etc. won't be an issue on the finished product.

Finally, a 'behind the scenes' shot.

A GALLERY OF ALL THE PROJECT SWORD TOY SPACE GLIDERS AND CLONES

Sometimes things come together.

Myself and fellow toy collector and blog supporter Arto have been collecting space gliders for years. It will have all started with a Project SWORD toy.

Now, years later, we have between us probably almost* every variant of the Project SWORD space glider around, so I've put together a gallery of my own toys, along with Arto's fabulous fleet, for your enjoyment.

Here's my Moonbase group:

Top row: 

Hoover Glider silver switch, Hoover Glider Blue switch, white 2001 glider, red 2001 glider

Bottom row:

Grey Mego Space Tract, Kevin D Hoover silver custom, Century 21 Grey, Century 21 Orange

Arto's fleet:

L to R:

Orange Mego Space Tract, Tarheel Grey, Durham Green, Century 21 Grey, Hoover orange.

The one I forgot to photograph of mine! Doh!

The cheapo Day-f-ran Space Glider, 2nd from the left without its canopy but with its flower sticker.

and to see it nicely cleaned and complete with its canopy, here's collector Ferryman's lovely Day-f-ran [minus the flower sticker].

There are box variations as well with Tarheel's space gliders and the completist would want to have those too I imagine, but I have stuck to the toys. There maybe some undercarraige colour variations too.

If you know of any variations then please let me know.

The * next to 'almost' at the start of this post refers to the ones that got away. Yes, there are still some toy space gliders, of this size, that neither Arto or myself have got, namely three other variants of the 2001 toy above: white Spirit of America, white NASA with flames and green Spirit of America. Have you got any of them readers? Pictures by email would be welcomed!

I hope you enjoyed these gliders and I'd like to thank Arto and Ferryman for sharing their beautiful toys with Moonbase.

AMPHIBIOUS CAR BOATS: DRIVING ON WATER

 Ever since I enjoyed playing with my Aquacar in the Sixties, I've always kept an eye out for amphibious toy cars.

The onset of the internet revealed a whole flotilla of vintage examples and here are two brands with a similar look and like all great toys they have battery operated propellers.

I've picked a few pictures off the net to highlight their slick designs.

Here's the Elektro Record 5555 by German stalwart Schuco released in the late Fifties/ early Sixties [date needs confirming]. This is a true boat but may be the origin of the Hong Kong amphibious cars that look a lot like it.

Here we have the above Record boat along with the 1960's boxed Amphibious Car released by T in a Circle / Tai Hing toys, a Hong Kong outfit who may have taken their inspiration from Schuco.

You can see this link more clearly with the Schuco Elektro Amphibio 5560 below.

Even the box art is similar. Here's the Schuco box.

and the T in a Circle box.

T in a Circle added new body colours and here's the lovely blue version.

Have you any amphibious toys readers?

Glencoe Models

Hi Woodsy

Having another look at You Tube, I found this brief history of Glencoe Models from Maxsmodels. The company mainly re-issued older kits from the 1950s and 1960s by some of the smaller US companies. 

Often of subjects that no one else did, although the scales could vary. Maxsmodels does several of these company histories, all worth a look. This one includes spacecraft, missiles, dinosaur skeletons, and X-plane models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quiNTQ17zqM&pbjreload=101

Yours Sincerely,
Paul Adams from New Zealand

MADSAKI

MADSAKI

SIXTEEN 12 MICRO LABORATORY EAGLE

Here's a few photos of the prototype Sixteen 12 Micro Laboratory Eagle. It's 51/2" long, with detachable booster rockets, and laboratory/survey pod, aluminium engine bells, and all comes with an in-scale Moonbase Alpha Moon buggy. (which is very, very small!) The Moonbase Alpha Launch pad is sold separately. As I've mentioned on my previous Micro Eagle posts, as some people are just looking for something wrong, this is just a 3D printed prototype model, so finer details, out of line leg pods, drooping engine bells, etc. won't look like that on the finished models.

The Last Days of Empire

My toy 'empire' that is, the old vintage toy business I had buying and selling old toys full time on Ebay and toy fairs back in the Noughties.

It was a lot of fun but I ended up with leftover stock when I finished around 2008. It's been sitting in our attic ever since.

Lockdown has given me a chance to start selling this final stuff and I've been slowly at it for the last 10 months.

Most of the smaller items have gone now so I'm down to the bigger things. Boxed toys and board games really. Some from the Noughties now and some huge Manta Force sets later in the year.

Its a mixture of relief and sadness seeing my leftovers go. Relief that we'll eventually have our attic back and sadness as I am quite nostalgic about my old toy selling days. Back in the day I was what Ebay called a Power Seller and had toy stalls at Morley, Rothwell, Doncaster and Donnington, besides some really fun smaller evening fairs like Normanton and Stanley Ferry. It was at such an evening fair that I found my first Project SWORD toy in 1990, the Space Glider, which I'd loved as a kid.

Anyways, here are a few "remains of the play" - I know, I know, terrible pun! Mostly early Noughties.

Spider-Man Flip Trap set 2002

Jurassic Park III Raptor Attack Set 2001

X-Men Electronic X-Jet 2000

I'll post more later.

Re-Discovering Explorer 12

 British Home Stores excellent, but oft overlooked toyline Explorer 12, now has a permanent blog, thanks to the efforts of expert collector Joe Lang. Joe has been hunting down the origins and variations of the toyline for many years and has just presented his findings on a new dedicated blog, which you can visit here: https://explorer12.co.uk

Joe will be posting regular updates and new material including some gorgeous Mike Noble artwork on the E12 story books!

EVEN MORE HALF-REMEMBERED TELLY AND FILMS

Even more films and TV series I half recall, can't recall or have never seen but should have done. Ring any bells readers?

1. Firefox. I had this as a hardback book with a jet plane on the cover. Was it a TV series too?

2. Banshee Chapter. Never seen this modern horror but some folk rave about it. Do you? I get it mixed up with Blue Thunder and Airwolf.

3. Star Crash. I think its a Star wars rip-off. Any good?

4. Warlords from Atlantis. Never seen this either. Versatile Doug McClure maybe in it.

5. Humanoids of the Deep. I have this on VHS but never watched it.

6. Chimera. I really enjoyed this sci-fi TV series back in the day but I've never seen it since. You?

7. King Arthur and the Knights of the Square Table. This cartoon was brilliant but I've not seen it in donkeys' years. You?

8. Double Deckers. I loved this as a kid but can't recall a thing about it except for a cute kid and a London bus.

9. The Impossibles and Frankenstein Jr. I had annuals for these two cartoons as a kid but did I see them on the telly? Can't remember when they were on.

10. The Belly or Mark of the Beast. A film I've heard of byt never seen. About a beast on the Lancashire moors during the Thatcher years. Know it?

IN MEMORY OF DON HARLEY

The sad passing of artist Don Harley has certainly prompted quite a number of comic art fans to pay their respects to him through social media, and I’m pleased to say, this blog! I’m too young to have originally seen his contribution to the Dan Dare Eagle strip in the fifties each week. I first happened upon Dan Dare in his 1963 Space Annual. Remarkably, I still have that annual, which features a lot of Don’s art.

In fact, my memories of Dan Dare and the Eagle comic are based around the early sixties, when creator, Frank Hampson had moved on from Dan Dare, being replaced by Frank Bellamy, Don Harley, Bruce Cornwell, and Keith Watson. I would read and enjoy the comic during wet playtimes at school. But by then the Eagle had had its heyday, and the new kid on the block was TV Century 21.

Don, of course contributed quite a lot to TV Century 21, including standing in for Frank Bellamy on the Thunderbird strip. Don also worked on other City Magazines publications like Solo, and TV Tornado.

When Polystyle Publications launched Countdown in 1971, Don was on board drawing a brand new, albeit, black & white Thunderbirds strip.

A few Eagle fans have mentioned they met Don when he attended the 50th Eagle Anniversary event in Southport, during 2000. This was apparently the second time Don, who was born in London, had visited the place where Dan Dare and the Eagle comic had originally been created. His first visit was 1988 to attend an Eagle Society event. He joined Frank Hampson and the Eagle team following their move from Southport to Epsom a dozen or so issues (I think it was 14) after the Wagle's launch.

I have fond memories of attending that event myself, and meeting up with some of the Eagle Society members, some of whom I’d met ten years earlier at the Southport 40th Eagle Anniversary exhibition. Although, I wasn’t a member of the Eagle Society, I was invited to attend the event, and met Don in the dealers’ room, who commented on a Boy’s World comic I’d just bought, which featured his work on the front cover. We managed a brief chat, before he was whisked away to some other part of the room. A short time later, a coach arrived at the town centre hotel to take us to the Southport College of Art, to see some other related Eagle exhibits. (My memory is a little vague on the exhibits; I seem to recall documents showing that Frank Hampson hadn’t completed his course at the nearby King George V College, and Eric Eden who had also studied in Southport, had, although I might be mixing that up with another Eagle event held there, some years later.) On the coach, Don, possibly recognizing me from earlier, sat down next to me, and we had another brief chat about comic art. I’m more of a TV21, and Anderson fan rather than Eagle, but Don was happy talking about TV21 and Countdown comic in which he drew the Thunderbirds strip. He did however, mention that he was originally down to do the UFO strip. During the walk round Southport College of Art, we talked about Eric Eden's work, (Eric’s family were also attending the event), and Don was quick to point out that Eric was a master when it came to airbrushing, but not so good when it came to figure drawing. Later, we all visited the Southport Atkinson Art Gallery, and the Dan Dare/Eagle Exhibition, organised, with a lot of help from the Eagle Society, and various contributors, by the local council who, controversially wanted to charge an entrance fee. They even tried to charge Don to get in, but I just told him to ignore it, and we both walked straight in unhindered. In the exhibition, Don, looking at some original Dan Dare art by the late, Keith Watson, pointed out that Keith was actually colour-blind, apparently.

Although my meeting with Don, along with a fair number of other Eagle fans was very brief, my memory of him was as a pleasant, quietly spoken, modest man and certainly easy to chat with.

Blog reader and Dan Dare fan, Andy Boyce, kindly sent me a couple of photos he took at a 'Spaceship Away' day in 2005. Don was, at the time doing new pages for the magazine.

Blog reader Terranova47, another Eagle and Dan Dare fan also kindly sent in some Don Harley art, as used in Spaceship Away.