Italian Space Board Games

 Awhile back Looey reminisced about an Italian tin moon surface board game he had as a kid and couldn't find online. I've looked too and no luck yet, but I did find a whole flotilla of other vintage space games from L'Italia. See what you think.

Streets Ahead

Another news item today was the erection of a blue plaque on the house of the chap that invented Cluedo, one Anthony Pratt.

Interestingly the clip explained that Mr. Pratt was inspired to develop something by a neighbour who had invented the Buccaneer board game ten years earlier!

Small world! 

Do you or did you play either of these games readers?

Flight at the Museum

There is an interesting old board 

game called Sputnik I saw on a Museum's superb site about German space board games. I love its plastic rockets! They remind me of a project SWORD Probe Force 3! 

Is it a game you know readers?

You can check out the games site here

 https://www.wirtschaftswundermuseum.de/weltraumspiele.html

What do you think?

Invasores!

 This space game looks

 interesting!

The box art space gun is fantastic!

The plastic canons themselves are less so, but it's an interesting idea.

It comes with a neat grid board.

Not sure of the rules. You?

Game On!

Seeing this German board game, ÖL,  on one of my Kleinanzeigen searches reminded me how I used to collect vintage board games for the beautiful box art like this.

Always arresting and high quality, board game box art was fabulous in the Sixties and Seventies, standards which took these games around the globe. I guess you could call it boomer box art, when everything was still an adventure.

Here's the UK and Finnish versions, OIL and ÖLJY.

Other fantastic boxes I've found over the years include these Waddingtons beauties, all good enough to hang on a wall:

Do you have some favourite board game box art readers?

Six Million Dollar Three Dimensional

 

On a recent mooch round Pontefract these two oldies caught my vintage eye.

Above is Three Dimensional Noughts and Crosses. How space age is that! 

Now I've got it in my head that Spock played this in Star Trek. Is that right?

My older brothers played a similar tiered game called Space Lines when I was a kid. Remember that?

Below is Steve Austin in his special chamber. Not a toy I had - I was too old by then - but one I like. The best feature on the figure is the see-through eye. Ha e you looked through one?

Space Board Games from Germany

 I've always loved board games.

It's the box art and contents that do it for me. Not the playing. I get bored!

Here's a fantastischen gallery of German space themed board games I've found. 

You may have your own versions of these games. 

Here's the link to the Brettspiel Museum

 https://share.google/pUpwQB891aTeM0UXK

See anything you have or like? 

Battle in a Box! The Triang Battle Game

Attracted by the fantastic box art, I noticed a very battered boxed example of this huge game in York this weekend,

The Battle Game by Triang. 

This gorgeous example I found on Board Game Geek.

As big as a small suitcase, the beautiful box art continues on the box sides. I love those colour panels.

The game contents include card backgrounds, plastic soldiers and gun emplacements. 

Not a game I ever saw as a young 'un, the box art reminds me of old war comic covers like Commando, Battle annuals and even Battle trading cards.

Is it a game you know readers? Do you have any war comics, annuals or cards?

The Magnificent Race

 Paul's ace book Monte Carlo or Bust reminds of this vintage board game I once picked ked up at a sale, The Magnificent Race.

Not sure who did the box art. It may still be in the loft!

Very Wacky Races cum Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

You got one or anything like it!

Pics: Ebay

I'M SEEING TRANSOGRAM!

 This solar lamp was outside our rural caravan in Spring.

As soon as I saw it I thought of that old US Transogram board Game with the big orb, Ka-Bala! 

Not a game I e ever seen in the flesh but it spoke to a whole generation of Sixtie's American kids. Literally! 

Such a cool game. Have you got one? 

Similarly, this little fellow reminded me of that other big spooky Transogram game ... 

..... Green Ghost! 

Another fantastic looking game! 

Did you have any Transogram games or toys readers?

Amazingly you can get a miniature of the Green Ghost game, among many others, on Etsy. 

How have they done that? It's so darn coooool!

I Sold a 4D Board Game to it's Inventor

I once sold an old game to a chap. The game and the chap turned out to have a story and he has kindly shared it with the blog:

"I was at A-level stage in about 1979/1980, and despite trying to do boring school stuff, I was also one of the first people in the UK to build my own home computers and program them, and this was before you could buy any type of off he shelf 'home computer. 

There wasn’t much you could do with them as there wasn’t an established market for games or software. So I used to have to program my own games, in machine code or basic. I was a keen addict at the local games arcade, so writing space invaders and asteroids was an obvious target. 

Myself and a few of my friends formed a weird little group that would now be called the geek squad or similar (!) and we all used to get involved with unusual activities, often with the school teachers encouraging our little group to do things that all the 1,500 kids couldn’t be bothered to take interest in.

The teachers at school kept an interest in what we were doing, because no one knew anybody who was doing anything like it. But we also used to play various board games, like chess and Halma. 

One day our maths teacher ( A Mrs Ball …) approached me and a few friends who played chess, and told us how one of her relatives had invented a new kind of chess with a 'star trek' style time-warp / time-delay element built in.

If you look at the original 1966 Star trek series, you will sometimes see Spock playing a weird looking version of chess with a variety of platforms up one side of the board. It was a kind of 3D chess board. Pieces get moved onto the platforms and shifted along one platform per turn, or something like that. 

Eventually they pop out of their "time warp" and can be placed back on the main board somehow. I am convinced that the chap who invented 4D was inspired by both chess and the star trek version. 

Anyway, we were all asked to play the game a few times according to the rules he had set, although he wanted feedback as to any good ideas to improve things or comments on things that were annoying. We all found the game quite good fun. 

But I never knew what happened to it after it went to market, so seeing it on ebay the other day was great, and off course I bought it! 

So, there you go. A tale of 4D from 40 yrs ago! cheers, 

A.M"

LOFT PROPERTY

Watching old episodes of Toy Hunter has been fun.

Here's two old IDEAL games that Jordan found in American lofts.

This one, Ideal's Mr. Rembrandt, I don't know but I like it. A sort of Mr. Machine robot combined with Spirograph. It draws shapes as it motors round its paper. How cool is that!

Is it one you know? 

This one I do know, Electronic Detective. At least I know of it. I found two of these in the late 1990's at car boot sales and sold them on. A fabulous 'computer' helps work out who the perps are in a sort of electronic Guess Who.

Is this one you know readers?

JUNKING IN EMPORIA 2: ZOWIES

 Further junking brought up these bad boys in two emporia: the old Magistrates Court and Etsy, both in Pontefract.

All in good nick and just one pound each. Bargain!

I was particularly chuffed with the little Zowies, those comical miniature Hot Wheels with tyres too small for the redline they deserved. I had these as a kid and they ran on lino really well. These three take my small collection to five.

Do you remember Zowies?

CLEMENTONI'S BLACK HOLE

I saw this Clementoni Black Hole board game and thought, I've not seen that before.I do like the box art.

Anyone got this Italian game?

GAME ON

 

Recently spotted in a charity shop on the top shelf, these two boxed board games were ten pounds each. Way too dear for me. 

 I do like seeing old board games like this. I used to pick them up for a pence at boot sales in the 90's. Great fun.

Dads Army was based on the popular TV show and released by Strawberry Fayre way back in 1974, making it 50 years old.

Payday was released by Palitoy in the 1970's too, the 'funny money game for all the family'. Its not a game I know at all.

Do you remember these games readers?

Just before Lockdown

 I've been deleting old snaps and came across this bunch showing old games and toys I set out for a collector to browse.

It was a couple of weeks before Lockdown in March 2020. It seems like a lifetime ago now.

I recall my Missus had seen an ad of this chaps on FB, a collector of board games.

Besides games I set out a few other bits and pieces to tickle his fancy.

A lot of this was left over from my old toy stall I had at toy fairs. It had been languishing in the loft for years.

I seem to remember the collector buying quote a lot.

Another two weeks and he wouldn't have been allowed to leave his bubble and come to our house! 

Have you ever had a collector or dealer come to your house to buy stuff readers?

S i l v e s t e r 1 9 8 3

Clearing out my Wife's parents' apartment has been a sobering and often sombre experience this past month.

I've personally known them since 1979, that's most of my adult life till they passed away. It's humbling to be the custodians of their entire life's purchases, belongings, heirlooms and clothes. There was and is so much of it.

Occasionally in all the shifting and sifting I stumbled on evidence of my own small part in their lives.

One such piece was this old games compendium. 

At first glance I didn't notice anything ...

but on closer inspection ....

There's my name and the year written by my Father in Law at the time. I was 22 and living in Germany with his daughter round the Corner from where they lived.  It was New Years Eve, Silvester, 1983 and we must have been playing board games as a family.

I was touched seeing it, a small something of me from my Father in Law so long ago.

I was there. Where were you readers?