Monday, 10 June 2024

Astro Launch and the Vigilante



I've always liked the Astro Launch toy in it's black and white design. Very Matt Mason. The box is like a Haynes manual! It's too recent for me to have had as a kid. What's it's programmed sequence do I wonder?

This old auction lot also came with an Italian boxed version, Vigilante. The ship is thinner with more colour to it. Which do you prefer readers?

The first toy on the left is the Project SWORD Scramble Bug, a favourite of mine as a kid! 

11 comments:

  1. Those are lovely

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  2. All are works of space toy art! SFZ

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  3. I had the alternative version with fighters that bobbed up and down as it moved. The central section was a removable modular space station too. I got mine about 1981 Bill
    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/276501418075?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=vVGCRdCRQ8i&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=da68HmgHRHG&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

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    1. Fascinating! This design has legs! What happened to it Bill?

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  4. The Scramble Bug is nice - I'm gonna have to look out for one!

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    1. It was one of my fave toys as a kid Ed. Very flexible it is.

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  5. I only ever had the Scramble Bug as a cut out model as a kid. One of my early delights at discovering Moonbase Central was your archive of these old craft books!
    That Vigilante box art immediately reminded me of AMT's reissue of the Leif Erricson space craft (designed by Matt Jeffries!)

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    1. The white Astro Launch box art recalls a the ship on a Star Wars hardback kids book called the White Droid or White Witch. Can't remember exactly.

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    2. Glad we could help with the archive Looey!

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