MAJOR SIMILARITIES

 I'm amazed how similar this old life-size kids' space helmet is to Major Matt Mason's miniature one.

Made by Dekker, this fabulous one was on the Australian Museum Powerhouse collection.

Did you have a space helmet?

PLONG! Jean Höffler's Astronauts

 I had an interesting mooch round for what I call Plong Spacemen on the net to see what's out there.

Made by Jean Höffler of West Germany, branded as JEAN, these spacemen are quite distinctive with the antenna on top. I imagine they are nice to collect. Höffler were a prolific toy company and you can read a full company history at the superb Blechroboter.de here 

https://www.blechroboter.de/info/jeanhoefler/index.html

Woolworth released these bagged Satellite Patrol figures in silver and white. I love the header card art. The number 10 appears to be the number of figures in the bag. I assume its the European Woolworths brand, which is still going and has shops!

Woolworth issued these carded Luna Astronauts, with a clear picture of the moon front and back.

The same name appeared on this larger blister card, this time with partly painted astronauts.

More Woolworths releases in the form of Plong bubble gum, which is what I know these figures as, Plongs. You can see the Jean Höffler logo on the card rear with the word JEAN and a motif above, although I'm unsure what it represnts.

These antenna'd men came with Plong bubble gum bars, individually wrapped, in this blister card. The gum reminds of Bazooka.

My friend Paul V pointed out yet another pack, a double with four bubblegums, as seen online. A gorgeous shop display box too!

JEAN also released a whole line of space vehicles to go with the figures, which may have been a single space station set. Not sure I've seen the box for this though. You?

What do you think of JEAN branded astronauts readers?

Action Man Astronaut: Lift Off!

My home made classic astronaut is done and ready for his first mission. But where to?

See what you think.

BUM ASTRONAUTS

 

These astronauts are new to Moonbase. I like the box art.

I saw them on Spain's Todocollecion auction site.

Looking like simple plastic spacemen and moon cars, it was released by BUM.

Have you anything like this?

ED'S MYSTERY SPACEMAN: SOLVED!

Woodsy and Fellow Moonbasers,

During the past several months I've been out in The Cave photographing my spaceman collection. 

In there was this guy. After putting photos of him in the facebook (Meta) groups, the usual crew of experts came up with bupkis. One facebooker did mention that - stylistically - he appears to be Tudor Rose-ish. 

hmmmm Another one thought he may have been designed as a keychain, and after taking a second look at that big round chunk of plastic on the head, it appears as if it could be the remnants of a ring meant to hold either a keychain or perhaps the strings of a parachute! hmmmm. 

In any case, I have no clue who made him. Any guesses??

From Vegas Base

Ed

*

SOLVED!

Woodsy and Fellow Moonbasers,

A 'Top Contributor' on one of the facebook groups was able to identify this figure. Apparently, he is in fact Lido. He's one of three space parachute figures listed separately from Lido's Humanoid series. He's not in any of the reference materials I have and is a bear to identify unless you're deeply immersed in the subject.

Unconfused in Vegas Base

Ed

ED'S MOON SUITS

Woodsy,

I enjoyed your save of the Major Matt Mason Moon Suit - you really do wonders with bits-&-pieces! Have you ever thought of cobbling together a steam-punk style spaceship? 

I don't collect the original MMM - preferring, for the most part, smaller sized figures. Here's some shots of my Marx 54mm astronauts in both the Grumman MK-1 suit and the Republic Aviation suit.

From Vegas Base

Ed

Jumping for Joy

Italy's Quercetti is well known for rockets and parachutes.

Their JR21 marketed Fireball XL5 has featured here many times, as has the Mach-1 and TOR.

These toys incorporated a small blow moulded parachutist and chute.

Eolo's much bigger set had a similar jumping astronaut cum pilot.

This bended knee jumper became a staple. Here's a more recent bag of three. 

I think you can still get this toy in some form.

It's become a party favour!

MYSTERY MEN

Woodsy,

More digging through old boxes, and found these two astronaut toys, still in plastic wrap, about 3” tall and in spiffy shape. Again, I have no idea if they’re from the day or more recent. Anyways, another mystery!

Any ideas anyone?

Rob C

CT

USA

ED'S NOSCO MEN

Here's my set of three small (1 3/4" - 42mm H) spacemen, 

The grey one on the right here may be an unattributed Nosco item - or... any ideas readers?

As for the other two, I was perusing Kent Owen Sprecher's excellent 'Toy Soldier HQ Inc' website and found they (left and middle in the photo above) are Cracker Jack premiums made by Nosco in 1958.

and here's my Nosco Fire Engine. Hope you like it!

Ed B

Las Vegas