SICK BAY

 I like toy guns, I always have but this is really odd. Quite why a Doctor's set would need a handgun is beyond me!

No-one needs feel left out, they come in pink and blue!

For years 3 upwards.

Bizarre!

Landline Apocolypse

 I heard yesterday that they had switched off all landlines here in England.

Now I'll be honest, I'm not entirely sure what it means. 

I assume 'they' means BT.

We personally haven't had a house phone for about a year. No one phoned us on it, only marketing firms. We rely entirely on our mobiles. 

So anyone know what it means that they switched off all landlines?

"To carry a man, a larger edition is required...": an art box is born!

Hello Woodsy, my Missus has been getting up to all sorts of hijinks...

As Cliff Richard sang "I met a girl and she told me she loved me

I said you love me then love means you must like what I like"

Well, that's come home to roost with her latest 1/12 scale room box. 

It features a friend of ours in his studio (for the BlueMountainsPortrait Prize)

.

There are lots of lovely details like the broom made out of a toothbrush and the mandatory hidden mouse, but the crown jewel is a hand made miniature of George Pal's Time Machine, reimagined as a pull toy!

The disc at the rear and the cushions on the chair are made of Sculpey poly clay. The base is balsawood and aluminium wire. The carved timber details on the chair are cut out of plastic sheet and the flourishes built up with modelling paste and PVA glue (how does she do it?)

The whole thing is hand painted with chrome metallic paints for the details. I'd just bought a new box set of Green Stuff World metallics and it looks like it's left me already and gone to live in her paint drawer!

Hmmm, those wheels on the pull toy look awfully familiar... Ring any bells, Moonbasers?

Looey

Oz Base

Kevin's Custom Mr.Troop

Hi,

Made Mr. Troop, the Trumpton Town Clerk.

The Mayor is very busy!

Kevin

UK

Nagasakiya SF Mecha MOLAB

Here's something we've seen before on MC but only in part. Now we can see the full candy showa molab vehicle from Japan. Thanks to Terry H for pointing it out.

What do you think?

Our Mock Mr. Rock Blister Carded

 It's been awhile since this Mr. Rock mockoff figure was finished.

 I've been waiting for the best blister to fit his 9 inches and wide stance, but more importantly I wanted to do decent justice to Bill's fabulous repro card art.

Today I found a largish clear plastic sushi box in Aldi. It provided the perfect blister, as well as my Japanese lunch. You got a little plastic fish too! Result! 

So here he is, the Moonbase International carded mock Mr. Rock finally finished.

See what you think.

In monochrome as it might have appeared in comic ads.

I added an old price tag this time for a final touch. 

I had to keep this photo as somehow it's captured my ugly mug too! Ha ha

SMART MOVE

 Being a long time fan of the spy spoof TV series Get Smart I was pleased to get hold of this AMT kit of Max Smart's Sunbeam Tiger.

I'll do a more in depth look at the car and the series, once it's built.

Aces In Action Lenticular Cereals Cards

Hi Woodsy,

Here is another set of Lenticular cards from packets of breakfast cereal. This time from Nabisco Spoon Size Shredded Wheat.

From 1980 (40th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain), the 'Aces in Action' Magic Picture Cards. A set of five cards depicting famous RAF fighter aces shooting down enemy aircraft in the Battle of Britain.

Each card shows the action in three stages. Honestly, the images are not great, and the aircraft are not well drawn, but a very interesting set.

This You Tube video from Cerealmad shows all five cards, as well as the front and back of the boxes. The back of the packet even had a mail-away offer for two Airfix kits.

For £2, plus two box tops, and 60 New Pence postage, you got a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt Bf-109. The offer closed 31st December 1980.

The kits are described as the 1/48th scale Airfix Spitfire Mk.Vb, and the Messerschmitt Bf-109E. but Airfix did not do a Bf-109E in 1/48th scale at that time, only a Bf-109F – both this and the Spitfire Mk.Vb were far too late for the Battle of Britain.

Both the Spitfire Mk.Vb and the Bf-109E were available in 1/72nd scale, so something is amiss. Does anyone have any further information on this mail-away offer ?

The advertisement says 2 Models for Only £2, Save £1. This does indeed suggest the 1/48th scale kits, which were in Series 4, rather than the cheaper 1/72nd scale models which were in Series 2.

But neither of the 1/48th scale kits depicted aircraft from the Battle of Britain era, as both the Spitfire Mk.Vb and Bf-109F entered service in 1941. I have no idea what sort of packaging the mail-away kits came in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX-_W2dGGR4

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Ed's Captain Video Photo Shoot

Woodsy,

Here's some photos I took while recording my Lido Captain Video toys last year.

Enjoy!

From Vegas Base

Ed

TERRY's NEW JOE 90 COLLECTABLES FROM JAPAN

Blog friend and Anderson fan Terry H has kindly sent me pictures of a small pocket notebook and a jigsaw puzzle he's recently got from Japan for his collection.

Hope you like them.

Corgi's Popeye Models

Hi Woodsy,

Great job on your re-creation of the Corgi Popeye's Paddle-wagon. Corgi did four different Popeye vehicles, of which I have these two.

Regular large Corgi model [above left]

802 – Popeye's Paddle-Wagon, 1969-72. With Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Swee'Pea figures, plus the heads of Wimpy and Bluto. This 126mm toy is easy to identify as the anchors are part of the mudguards.

Corgi Juniors Extra

1008 Popeye Paddle-Wagon, 1971-72, smaller and simpler version of 802, without the mounted heads. The anchors are part of the boat hull, 70mm.

There were also two Corgi Juniors:

67 – Popeye's Tugboat, 1980 until the end of the line. A small open vessel that ran on concealed wheels. Plastic Popeye figure, 77mm.

79 – Olive Oyl's Aeroplane, 1980 until the end of the line. Open cockpit monoplane. Olive Oyl figure, 68mm.

I have the small Paddle-Wagon, and the Tugboat, and the photos are of my models. The other two are from Worthpoint.

Anyone else got any of these?

Paul Adams from New Zealand

SUPER7 TOYS: A BLISTERING RANGE!

 I'm in awe of just how prolific this modern nostalgia action figure company is. 

I've seen a few ReAction carded action figures in shops but had no idea there were so many Super 7 figure lines - there's hundreds!

Shogun, Mars Attacks, Thundercats, Universal Monsters to name just a few.

I can really relate to the urge to recreate figures and Super 7 have caught the retro zeitgeist. A really fantastic job for a modern toy company.

Clearly there's a vein of meme humour running through some of the lines that I don't get - The Worst and Wing Kong for instance - its an age thing I bet, but all in all I'm astonished by the fabulous range and vision of Super 7 toys.

Have a look and see what you like.

https://super7.com/

Blast from the Past

 I was just looking at Will O's Space Communicators and the artwork on the first box, of a space helmeted child brought back a clear memory! In the sixties, Matlow Sweets (now Swizzels-Matlow) made some small bon-bon like sweets called 'Climpies', in a small tube pack of about 8. These were usually in a counter box or on a tray, in sweet shops and kids could buy them along with other small items.

As they are small spheres, arranged in a row in the package, they looked a little like the ping pong ball guns that were all the rage at the time and at some point Matlow marketed the sweets with an image of one of these child astronauts holding a space bazooka loaded with Climpie sweets, gleefully blasting them out into space. The artwork was very reminiscent of the painting on the walkie talkie box, but also always put me in mind of Fireball XL5, with the big winged shoulder pads. Try as I might, I cant find any sign of advertising or packaging for Climpies online, although the sweets are quite well remembered by boomers, even if only as a choking hazard!

HOLD THE PHONE!

Hi Woodsy, I think these qualify as phones. 

have you got any of them readers?

Will O. UK

Probe a Bit More: Lucky Toy's Lunar Probe No.1

 A few toys only ever appear once or twice; online, in books, on auction, on here.

This is such a one.

The Lunar Probe by Lucky Toys.

I think it's first appearance on MB was probably 15 years ago at the start of the blog.

This one [it could be the same one] surfaced on Ebay last year [I think the seller was ZZRobot]. I kept the snaps.

Very similar to the rocket at the rear of the JR21 Rocket Transporter, its a fabulous space toy and worthy of Project SWORD livery I think. It even has those X-series silver rocket exhaust fins.

There's an unbranded silver grey version from Eastern Europe as well.

Lucky is the word, as its not a rocket we see often at all and as such, its a blog legend. 

Have you anything like it?

LOGAN'S DONE! MY CUSTOM LOGAN 5 CLOTHED PRINCESS DOLL

 A while back after finishing Zython I was flicking once more through my new and fabulous Knockoffs christmas gift book and found a another rare cheapo toy I just had to make.

The original and elusive toy appears both in the Plaid Stallions Knockoffs book and the related Mego Museum website.

Here it is, the fabulously cheesy 1970's Kmart Princess with new Long Hair doll in original Mego Logan's Run garb. The maker's clearly wanted to use up male Mego Logan 5 outfits rather than kit her out in the more diaphanous slip Jessica 6 wears in the 1976 movie. 

After all, this is a knockoff and nothing to do with Logan's Run.

[you can read all about Mego's attempt at Logan's Run toys on the brilliant Mego Museum site].

Image: Mego Museum

I looked around for an original Princess Long Hair doll and found a few for sale but they were all too dear for a tight-fisted Yorkshireman!

I also found this modern repro Logan's Run jumper made professionally for 12" dolls on eBay by BlackAshKitBash. Beautiful work but ten pounds would make me cry.

image; BlackAshKitBash

I decided to start from scratch and raided my doll stash for a suitable 12 inch Barbie clone.

A few swags of felt and cloth later and hey presto!

The boots came courtesy of Ebay from a very inexpensive seller. I coloured them black,

All she needs now is a card and blister. I will have to be extra nice to Bill!

What do you think readers?

I'll have to watch the film again now. Do you like Logan's Run? Book, film or series? Any toys?

*

A Fawcett Footnote: 

As a footnote, this project reminded me that Farrah Fawcett starred as Holly 13 in Logan's Run too wearing a glittery dress..

 and that I once found a huge doll that I thought was Farrah in yes, a glittery dress [it wasn't Farrah!]

You can read my blog entry at the time about this find here.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2017/09/dont-fawcett.html

Farah's stint in Logan's Run has inspired others to make custom figures of her. Here's a neat one I saw on Figure Realm by Nightwing1975 with Holly 5 in an equally glittery dress, a project which also includes an Action Man dressed as Logan 5! Now why didn't Palitoy think of that!

What do you think?

Image: Figure Realm

Coming full circle, Farrah even had her own Seventies knockoff too called Tanya/ Sport Girl ripping off Hasbro's Charlies Angels range. Don't fawcett!