Meet me at the Turnpike

I've said before that the Sears Bandai line are some of the most beautiful tin toys ever.

I mean look at the cruising lines of these Turnpike trucks. They're so Thunderbirds! 

Do you like them? Got any?

Spectrum is Back!

Hello Moonbasers, I'm back in Australia and putting my shattered life back together!

I've begun carefully sorting the lovely items I managed to find and am becoming ever more amazed I was able to pick them up at all!

Japan is known for always going for the latest, so anything vintage

(in Moonbase Central's interest range)

is pretty difficult to find. As I know from personal experience, if you see something you like

( say some Konami Anderson vehicles) and don't buy it at that instant, it may not be there for a second look!

Taking a closer look at my carded Hot Wheels SPV, I was surprised to see it's dated 2001, so it's already almost 25 years old!

Researching the page at

https://hotwheels.fandom.com/wiki/Charawheels

I discovered a lot of products I'd never known before.

There were a number of Anderson related vehicles, released in a joint Mattel/Bandai project, over just two years.

I'll let the HW website categorise them, but the first year saw a number of individual vehicles and the second year, three amazing boxed sets of multiple TB2 Pod vehicles.

Just look at these photos! All new to me and copied from the HW website.

See anything that tickles your fancy here?

Cheers, 

Looey

Back in Oz Base

Bandai Sunday

 I didn't bag any Star Wars down today's boot sale, but I did get some nice stuff.

The plastic bell jar skeleton is from 1991, the cast Romans from 2000 and the two figures are Thunderbirds are Go 2015.

I dropped on with the Bandai Terrahawks for a fiver the two. The Snorkel tender will be fun to do up with parts from the plastic Teamsterz one. Similarly Ill clean up the Goofy car and Plymouth Gran Fury.

The two other die-casts are for my cabinet, a lovely gold Superkings Merc from 1974 and a fabulous black Toyota Crown from Universal Hobbies. This car has four passengers and all are either gangsters or FBI. This is my fave buy today, just 50p!

What do you like readers?

Bandai Skydiver

This is a gorgeous plastic Skydiver by Bandai. I'm not sure I've seen one before, 

but this beauty can be seen in detail on the fabulous ISOSHADO website.

http://www.isoshado.org/6/6_merchandise_archivio/bandai_skydiver.htm

Have you got one or any other Bandai toys?

The Bandai Sears Supersonic Jetliner

 I've never seen this Bandai tinplate beauty in the flesh. I think it was a Sears Christmas exclusive.

Online auction pictures like these have to suffice but boy oh boy does it look grand!

Has anyone been lucky enough to have one?

The double teardrop cockpit blisters really make it for me. The flattened engines too. It's so Gerry Anderson! What a toy, almost too good to play with!

Do you like it readers?

oh, and here's its US patent diagram online:

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/29/b2/62/ae0439f73b5712/USD193013-drawings-page-1.png

Bandai Boxed Space Age Beauties

I've always liked Bandai's Space Age line of toy vehicles. They include several Thunderbirds Pod vehicles like the two shown. The one on the right is a Mighty Jack jet I think but I could be wrong. These were on auction so I saved this pic.

Anyone got any of this range?

Sunday Funday

Not bad at all at today's boot sale.

I picked up some cheap but unusual die-cast and plastic vehicles and a few other bits:

A G1 Optimus - Any idea how to whiten yellowing?, a Bandai Porsche ScaleRobo 1983 and a Popy Future Machine 1983, both grubby as they come.

A small batch of kit decals

A Four Feather Falls Jigsaw - battered box but my first ever!

Here's a closer look at the Popy Future Machine.

What do you think readers?

 

THE SKIES THE LIMIT: THE SEARS FIELD HELICOPTER

 Sears never fail to blow me away.

Here's another barnstormer, the Field Helicopter.

The toy looks spectacular, a backpack with rotors! Just amazing and the closest thing kids would have got to a jet pack!

I imagine these are uncommon and one on Ebay USA commanded a hefty tag.

Here's a video I found about the toy on You Tube.

Is this something you were lucky enough to own one Christmas readers?

Where did you fly to?

Bandai Animal Bowling Kits

As usual, while looking for something else, I discovered another bizarre kit line. This one is from the Japanese company Bandai.

The Animal Series is described on Scalemates as Animal Bowling, and that is just what the kits are. But instead of rolling a big, heavy ball at a line of pins or skittles, you launch a big, mean animal at them - take your pick from a Wild Boar, a Buffalo, or a Rhinoceros.

These look to be very simple, motorised animals, with only a few parts - which are out-numbered by the parts required for the set of bowling pins.

From the pictures on the side of the box, it appears the animals were wound up with a key, inserted in to the underside.

Each kit comes with ten white bowling pins, each of which is moulded in two halves. A sheet of stickers or decals includes animal faces and numbers for each of the pins.

It was the box art that got my attention. Each shows the animal in the kit sending its set of bowling pins flying, watched by various small creatures - a monkey of some sort on the Wild Boar, a pair of squirrels on the Buffalo, and a pair of tiger cubs on the Rhinoceros.

I found these kits on Scalemates, which says that all three date from 1970. SM also suggest that the Rhinoceros was re-issued at some time in the 1970s by Imai.

PG001-500 Wild Boar - ? plastic

PG002-500 Buffalo - brown plastic

PG002-500 Indian Rhinoceros - grey plastic

The only boxes I have seen just have Japanese writing on them, so perhaps the kits were only for the Japanese domestic market ? Certainly, the only sales listings for these kits all appear to be from Japan.

Mandarake looks to be a Japanese mail order or auction site. I did have some difficulty with the photos.

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1162353269&lang=en

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1218090379&lang=en

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1156969852&lang=zh

There is very little information on these kits, and I doubt if they were available for very long. Clearly toys rather than serious models, but they do score very highly on the weirdness meter.

Four photographs from Ebay.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

ARTO CLEANED UP!

Last month's bi-annual Clean-up Day was quite productive, finding this 1/12 scale Bandai Ferrari Flat 12 kit from 1968. 

I was a bit gobsmacked to come across such a rare bird, unstarted and all!

What do you think?

Arto

Helsinki Base

Dracula: The Burger Bandai King

Two boot sales this Sunday. The first was rubbish. The second landed me these. See what you think. Total outlay £2.10.

WHO IS THE MASTER OF THE TANTALOUS VASE?

I enjoyed oggling over this old auction mixed lot. There's something for everyone in there! One thing that caught my eye was the boxed Mysterious Tantalous Vase by Peter Pan Playthings, bottom centre in the lower box.

Now that's a toy I've not seen before. Just what is a tantalous vase? Anyone know?

Looking again, what is the green thing just above to the left and what is that brown action figure just behind the Tantalous Vase next to the Coffin Bank?

Over to you readers?

*

Addendum:

here's some of the thing's readers have ID'd so far:

The Sutcliffe Comet

The Wells Brimtoy Cinderalla and Prince Charming Waltzing Figures

I've spotted this tin Dutch Sight Seeing Bus from 1972

and the magnificent Bandai Moon Mobile Rocket Launcher, a Sear Exclusive [Mark Bergin Toys site]

The green thingy remained stoically anonymous but lo! ....!

It's the Triang Loch Ness Monster!

THE BANDAI MUSICAL VEGETABLE TRUCK

Woodsy,

Here’s another great sighting from Instagram, a Bandai “musical vegetable truck” from the 1960s. Amazing!

Rob C

USA

ROB'S MAZINGER Z CONDOR KIT: ITS MAZINGING!

Here is another Japanese kit I managed to sneak in before year’s end!

It’s something called Condor, from the Mazinger Z anime series, and I guess it’s a vehicle that sits on the head of the big robot. 

Anyways, the kit came with a small Mazinger Z figure which I built as well. I still have that cool Jet Pilder flying machine from Mazinger Z, which I built a few years ago. 

A Bandai 1990s reissue of a 1974 release. Gotta love the Shigeru Komatsuzaki artwork!

Enjoy!

Rob C

USA