Junior's Lego

 The Grandson Junior loves making Lego Minecraft models.

Here are four of his latest creations.

See what you think.

This sword is from small beads rather than Lego.

PLANES

I picked these up last month, a bundle of old metal planes and copters.

The green jet is Japanese tinplate, the rest are cast metal.

The small headless plane at the bottom is a cap banger I think.

Most of the cast models have the names of the planes on the undercarriage.

An interesting bunch.

A Look of Total Terra

 I'm not a Terrahawks fan - I simply didn't see it as I lived abroad at the time - but I appreciate the effort that went into designing the neat fleet.

So distinct are they and so orange, that its easy spotting the Bandai Popy toys from the show when on a car boot stall.

Bingo!

I picked these two up for a pound each. Not complete, they've since made two proper Terrahawks fans happy via eBay! 

Are they vehicles and toys you like readers? 

New Bullycan SpaceX Aircraft Carrier Labelling

 Recently seen on a Spanish auction, this bagged Bullycan plastic aircraft carrier has headers not seen on MC before.

Of interest to SpaceX and Golden Astronaut fans, the red planes are copies of the Hawk.

Oddly enough, the label shows a different more elaborate Aircraft Carrier, #3162, with various SpaceX copies on deck.

It's this one, which has appeared on MC before on this 1970 catalogue page.

It's one I have myself in plain white.

The rear of the new label shows the rest of the Bullycan boat range.

Have you anything like this readers?

Kevin's Nuclear Freighter Traffic Light

Hi,

When going through my box of scrap Spacex toys all very battered, I found enough bits to put together a couple of Nuclear Freighters.

 I decided to swap parts over to create a complete yellow one and a green one. 

To complete the traffic lights, I included my red one from the 2005 and Beyond toys.

Cheers,

Kevin

UK

Arto's "Strato Bank" at the Fleamarket

The best find was the metallic savings bank akin to the US Strato Bank. They made those money banks with Finnish bank logos printed on. I have a couple of them from before, but this one was the first with the red plastic ring around the planet still intact.

Hope you like it

Arto 

Helsinki Base

Mystery Train Set

 

I see this plastic train set all over. Usually it's loose and in bits.

This one in a charity shop appears complete.

Anyone recognise it? 

Berwick, Yesteryear and the Mystery Oriental Archer

A recent ramble round the old Roman town of Castleford taught us a lot about Roman life in Northern England but there wasn't much in the charity shops.

I did see this jigsaw puzzle of a car I'm pretty sure I had as a Yesteryear as s kid. But what was it?

I also clocked this boxed draughts set by Berwick, who were a popular toy company when I was a kid. Did you have any Berwick toys? 

The box art screams the 1960's, a graphics style I love. Do you?

And I'm still trying to ID this action dolls dressed in oriental garb, complete with plastic long bow and quiver. He's about 12 inches tall, like an Action Man

 I've a female red ninja too. 

As per usual I should have bought all 8 or so figures the boot sale seller had but I just got the two. Returning to the same stall last week all the other figures had gone. Serves me right! 

There are no makers marks at all in the visible areas.

Any ideas who he is readers?

I Saw Three Flicks

I've seen three flicks this week.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods. A new one for me, number two in the Shazam franchise. I like the look of Shazam more than I like the back story, a red suited Superman with a lightning symbol and an alias to swoon for, one Captain Marvel. What's not to like? For me the adolescent message is too ... Adolescent now I'm 64. Shazam is for younger super hero fans and I bet they love it. The daughters of Atlas give this movie some adult swoosh but I'll leave Billy Batson for the kids.

Flash: mired in his personal complications, Ezra Miller did a decent job of his own movie despite the unpleasantness. I like the Flash character and his desire to fix things I can relate to. The true spark of the film is Michael Keaton though, his reprisal of Batman an injection of genius. It recalled his acclaimed Bird Man too and seeing him again as the Dark Knight is a reminder of just how important Batman the movie was in 1989. I enjoyed the Flash, even Gorgeous George's cameo at the end! 

Seventh Son: I've seen this sword and sorcery flick before and I'm half way through this time. Despite being a box office bomb I like it. Monsters, wizards, witches. It's got the lot. I even like Jeff Bridges' gobstopper voice and Julianne Moore as arch witch...well, enough said!

What are you watching readers?

Brian H's Tudor Rose Find

Woodsy

Here's an interesting carded set of Tudor Rose spacemen. It's the Space Cadet Boy Adventurers set dating from around 1953. It contains three figures, one 72mm figure and two smaller 47mm figures.

I've seen the larger figure before, it's one of the regular Tudor Rose spacemen as shown at the top of the picture, but in forty years of collecting I've never seen or even heard of the existence of the small scale ones. 

The large figure is marked though the smaller ones have no marks. Once they become separated from the card they would be impossible to identify.

You'll find a variation of this card in Blast Off! but it was used as the base of a blister packed set of figures. 

The figures are standing on the card with the blister dome rising over them. 

Most unusual!

All the best

Brian H

Ed's Lionel Butterfinger Boxcar

Woodsy,

Here's a 'sweet' car from Lionel made during their MPC era - an era known for its wide variety of colorful, licensed rolling stock. It's one of many candy-related pieces of rolling stock out in The Cave.

From Candy Land Vegas

Ed

VTech Monster

Another recent one pound special at the local cricket club sale was this VTech beast.

It's massive and heavy.

The fun comes in trying to get it to work. The battery compartment is a mess and filing and scraping are the order of the day.

 

Watch this space! 

Paul's Hot Wheels Butterfingers

Woodsy, you recently mentioned the American Butterfinger chocolate bar, although apparently it is not officially 'chocolate'. The bar was originally made by the Curtiss Candy Company, but is now made by Nestle; and dates back to 1923

.

Hot Wheels have produced several die-cast models based on the Butterfinger bar (and lots of other yummy goodies). So I thought these were worth a quick look.

1996 Mustang GT convertible, from 1998. This one was part of the four-model Sugar Rush series within the Mainline, depicting various US candy bars.

'70 Chevelle SS coupe, from 2002. Part of the four-model Sweet Rides series within the Mainline.

'51 GMC C.O.E. (Cab Over Engine) truck, from 2016. This was part of a six-model Nestle set, within the Pop Culture line - premium models with metal bodies, metal baseplates, and Real Rider Wheels.

'71 Plymouth Satellite station wagon from 2018. Another Pop Culture line devoted to Nestle, but this time containing only five models

Four photographs from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Terranova's Taxis, Barts and Butterfingers

Hello Woodsy,

So you like your Butterfingers!

Well so did Bart. see attached!

My plastic bank shown on the left in my garage was on MC back in Lockdown when my money boxes and banks started to surface. The collection I never knew I had!

Also attached are pictures from my Taxi Collection which happen to be ceramic/plaster banks/money boxes.

Regards,

Terranova47

USA

Glimpses of Machinery

Discussing droids among us earlier in the month I recalled some songs about futuristic machines.

The earliest I remember is the fabulous Memory of a Free Festival by David Bowie. I was enthralled as a 12 year old with it vision of young people communing with Venusians and a Sun Machine:

We scanned the skies with rainbow eyes

And saw machines of every shape and size

We talked with tall Venusians passing through

And Peter tried to climb aboard

But the Captain shook his head and away they soared

Climbing through the ivory vibrant cloud

Someone passed some bliss among the crowd

And We walked back to the road, unchained

The Sun Machine is coming down, and we're gonna have a party.

Similar but darker is Bowie's Saviour Machine and it's terrifying mantra of My logic Says Burn! 

President Joe once had a dream

The world held his hand, gave their pledge

So he told them his scheme for a Saviour Machine

They called it the Prayer, its answer was law

Its logic stopped war, gave them food

How they adored till it cried in its boredom

Please don't believe in me, please disagree with me

Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now

Or maybe a war, or I may kill you all

Don't let me stay, don't let me stay

My logic says burn so send me away

Your minds are too green, I despise all I've seen

You can't stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

I need you flying, and I'll show that dying

Is living beyond reason, sacred dimension of time

I perceive every sign, I can steal every mind

Don't let me stay, don't let me stay

My logic says burn so send me away

Your minds are too green, I despise all I've seen

You can't stake your lives on a Saviour Machine

More recently those guitaring geeksters Radiohead described in stark terms modern mans' banal future sung-spoken in a robot's spooky voice:

Fitter happier

More productive

Comfortable

Not drinking too much

Regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)

Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries

At ease

Eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)

A patient, better driver

A safer car (baby smiling in back seat)

Sleeping well (no bad dreams)

No paranoia

Careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)

Keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)

Will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall)

Favours for favours

Fond but not in love

Charity standing orders

On Sundays ring road supermarket

(No killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)

Car wash (also on Sundays)

No longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows

Nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate

Nothing so childish

At a better pace

Slower and more calculated

No chance of escape

Now self-employed

Concerned (but powerless)

An empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)

Will not cry in public

Less chance of illness

Tyres that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)

A good memory

Still cries at a good film

Still kisses with saliva

No longer empty and frantic

Like a cat

Tied to a stick

That's driven into

Frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)

Calm

Fitter, healthier and more productive

A pig

In a cage

On antibiotics

On my CD player this month I've been enjoying the cyborg imagery of Turin Brakes' Underdog:

Two black lines streaming out like a guidance line.

Put one foot on the road now where the cyborgs are driving,

With the WD-40 in their veins the screeching little brakes complain.

And their starkly evocative Future boy with lines like:

Why are you pushing info into me,

I have no need for it, I'm from the stars.

Perhaps the earliest futuristic passage that appeared on MC back at the beginning was this brilliant but dark imagery by Damon Knight in his short story Masks. It even references a Moon Prospector! 

The prospector was climbing a crater slope with its handling members retracted and its head tilted up. Behind it the distant ringwall and the horizon, the black sky, the pin-point stars. And he was there, and it was not far enough, not yet, for the Earth hung overhead like a rotten fruit, blue with mold, crawling, wrinkling, purulent and alive.

What's your favourite lyric, line, verse or passage about machines,bots, droids and spaceships readers? 

Butterfinger!

My journey into the American confections at our local Spar continues.

The latest find is a long yellow wrapped chocolate bar called Butterfinger.

I loved it!

Crispy cracknel covered in chocolate. It was really delicious! 

Is it a bar you know?

My next American morsel from the Petrol Station Spar will be Milk Duds. Now what are they?

Hoover's Spaceships: Swallows and Rockets

Hoover released two Swallows.

Recently I saw this one on auction. It's Hoover's militarized F-111 version of the pair.

Five guns, red colouring and a tailfin were added for combat readiness.

This is its civilian counterpart in pearl white. I prefer this one as it's spacier.

The same box was used for both.

Similar to the Swallow, some time ago I got hold of a Rocket Car by Hoover.

I was looking for toys, which may have cast some light on Hoover's Project SWORD knockoffs.

Not to be confused with the similarly named HOVER, Hoover toys were marked with a geometric arrow and an Art. No. My rocket car is numbered 302 but is sadly unboxed.

This boxed version of my rocket car appeared later. There was no mention of Hoover in the listing and the box says 'Empire Made'. It could be the original, which Hoover knocked off. Does anyone know?

Hoover also made this Rocket XL9 Spaceship.

Packaged in a red striped box similar to that of the Swallow Rocket. The model number is 304.

This is a stripped-down Probe Force 3 and is also a knockoff.

The source of the toy can be traced accurately to the JR21 original, which has the same name, box and even the same model number, 304!

Anymore HOOVER or HOVER rockets or rocket cars out there readers?

*

Breaking News! New Rockets coming to MC! 

Driving Terranova47 Quackers

Hello Woodsy

Do I have any duck toys?

Yes this duck on a tractor is about 3.25" high, unpowered but with a hitch to tow something.

Yellow and black plastic it has no markings which to me indicates it is an unlicensed Disney's Donald Duck.

I own it because I like it's overall look.

Terranova47

USA