Dinner For One!

Hi Woodsy

I am afraid I do not know too much about this furry gentleman, who is about to tuck in to a pretty substantial looking fish dinner. Apart from the fact that it looks to be friction-powered, Made in Hong Kong, and was numbered No.417 on the underside.

There are two wheels under the red box, and a single wheel under the barrel. Bizarre, but cute.

Four photographs from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

The rest of the Dining Cat photos. I have no idea what his real name is. Another toy I stumbled across while looking for something else.

Yours Sincerely,

Paul from NZ

The Rabbit in Beetle Car

 Being a huge fan of vintage Hong Kong plastic novelty toys I adore this car I've been aware of now for a good twenty years.

I don't own one but I've always admired it from afar online, the Rabbit in Beetle Car by CW toys. What a Christmas prezzie it must have been! 

It has a bobbing head and is part of the small no Circus Toy range.

At first I thought the car was partly cabbage leaves but the green veined top is the beetles wing case!

There's a passing similarity to the Comicars range by JR21, - I've got two of these - which also had moving heads.

Anyone got anything like these?

Do you like them?

American Friction: Mine and Bill's New Book on Special Offer

I've just taken advantage of Blurb's very limited time offer of 50% off and free shipping (only within the UK I think but it's worth checking), so I thought I'd pass on the offer.

I've bought my own new book, American Friction,  as I currently don't have a copy, my one and only gifted to my older brother.

Normally £24.70 ( which I gain nothing from, just seeing book out there) it's half price and free postage for a couple of days at the print on demand publishers, Blurb. 

Mine was a very reasonable £12.35 today. 

Google Blurb UK, search for American Friction by Paul Woods and at the end of checkout enter and apply the discount code VIP25PREP.

American Friction is my Volume II about the less-well known JR21 toys with fab photographs by our very own Wotan Bill.

Happy JR21 Reading!

MoonBase Verify: Somportex Sweet-Filled JR21 Thunderbirds

In response to my last post and Kevin's observations I've reposted this very first piece about the sweet-filled JR21 Thunderbirds toys.

Note that it's 16 years old and none of the links will work, sorry.

Hope it all makes sense. Looks like the motors were missing and the gap filled with the sweets.

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Hello Woodsy

Thanks for the mail & the comments about my thunderbirdsvintagetoys
site.

The sweet filled TB2s - Christies worked a real flanker with
those. They were sealed in 4's - in brown paper.They wouldn't open them for
viewing so it was pot luck as to what was inside & the state of it. All 32
eventually ended up with a friend of mine. I got the best box etc but strangely
he kept the only bag of sweets still in their original 60s state. They were
spiders & bugs etc.

I never knew there was so much SWORD stuff.
I do recall a 2nd hand/junk shop in Nottingham having bucketloads of the stuff
in the late 80s @ 50p each - presumably from clearing old stock- I'd only
just gotten into collecting & wasn't wise enough to buy
it.

Sadly I cannot answer your questions about
SWORD but ......... I have put them & a link to your blog on my
site http://thunderbirdsvintagetoys.co.uk/ExternalLinks.htm

The TB2 you have found is not mine. There are quite a few of them about.
Here's another http://www.solnet.co.uk/metropolis/albumdet.asp?id=1035

The common thing is all the boxes are stained. Very few have sweets in any
state.

Dennis Nicholson loved the "with sweets" story too. The guy that told it to me is sadly long dead. I have no reason to disbelieve it. He worked for JR21 & Lincoln International too apparently.
A lot of the JR21 stuff that's around came from him. He - again apparently - handled shop returns & made good out of bad. And hoarded it. What foresight?

I believe the "Stingray Museum" site is long gone. I did
hear that the stuff was all sold & split up.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Regards,
Steve.

SWEET FILLED JR21 THUNDERBIRDS TOYS: re-printed from thunderbirdsvintagetoys with kind permission from Steve the site owner.

To get a set of JR 21 vehicles is hard enough? What about the RARER ones?

There's a story to tell.............and here's how it was told to me, many, many, many years ago- by an ex-employee of JR 21 Toys. And, of course, it might be a work of total fiction. Here goes..............

5
In the mid 1960s JR21 decided to move production of their toys from Hong Kong to England. When manufacturing in England was set up & in production it was discovered that toolings to make parts of the friction motors had not been brought over from Hong Kong. In order not to disrupt production nor reduce sales prices it was decided to compensate for the lack of a friction motor by including a packet of sweets within each box. All mention of a friction motor on the box was covered by a sticker saying "SWEET FILLED" (TB2 top picture)

6
So this was done for a limited time.......................

2 batches (as far as I am aware) of Thunderbird 2's containing sweets have turned up & been auctioned through Christies. As, over the years, the sweets had disintegrated & covered the boxes with a sticky mess, it was difficult to find good examples. Most of the boxes were stained.

I also have a Thunderbird 1 with the "SWEET FILLED" stickers on the box (bottom picture). There is no friction inside apart from the metal casing which held the motor. Presumably it was necessary for this to be there to hold the wheel axle.That being the case I can only assume that there were "SWEET FILLED" Thunderbird 3s & FAB 1s done? Anyone know? Anyone have one?

What a fabulous JR21 story Steve! Thanks ever so much for letting me re-use it. If you haven't checked out Steve's TB Toys site then get to it. Highly Recommended! Woodsy, 2009.

Birthday Spotlight: JR21 Commer Vans

 Ever since I started collecting Project SWORD toys I've been interested in other Century 21 and JR/ JR21 toys, especially less well-known ones.

One such range is the Merehall/ JR fleet of plastic friction commer vans.

I thought it would interest readers to see a good few of them. Some I own, many I don't (all images from eBay/ Vectis/ Worthpoint). There's always at least one on eBay UK. 

Other brands did Commers too like Hoda and Petrel. 

They're all plastic copies of Corgi die-casts.

JR marked vehicles came in Merehall branded boxes. There is no reference to JR toys on the boxes.

 Many of the rear end canopies where interchangable and many colour variations exist. 

It would make a fantastic collection if you could track them all down. 

Two series, I and II. 

Do you like them readers?

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Series I

Milk Van, Pick-Up, closed rear van ( there maybe more, rear ends are interchangable, as are colours)

Series II

Fire, Police, Ambulance

Woodsy's Book News! American Friction

After five more years of research I've published a second volume on the less-well known Jack Rosenthal toys. 

Having hit the ground running it took half the time volume I took, a whole decade! 

This second volume covers JR toys released by other companies like Gordy International and also UK toys not covered in the first book. 

It's smaller than volume I, with fewer pages so Blurb print it for less. Photography is in part once again by our very own Bill.

It was great fun to do on Blurb and volume III is now also in the works.

This new volume II is called..

 American Friction.

 Details will remain in the side-bar. Should you be interested,  ask me about a discount code.

Kevin's SpaceX and JR21 Toy group Shots

Hi,

I've got these shots to hand.

Kevin

UK

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Tri-ang SpaceX and SpaceX II toys

JR21 toys

The X-90 Flying Saucer Car

 

The X-series is thought by most collectors to be part of JR21's toy output. This X-90 is a fabulous example I saw on auction so I saved the snaps ages ago.

A wonderfully streamlines plastic space car that ejects flying rotors like the Major Matt Mason launcher many of us had as kids.

A really gorgeous toy, the model number is #241.

What do you think?

JR21 THUNDERBIRD 2: ITS STORY HAS LEGS!

I've been researching the legs of JR21 Thunderbird 2's of late, you know, the retractable part metal/ part plastic rods with those cute button feet.

As far as I can tell there are two colours, red and white. 

Having read up on the subject in various places, it would appear that the red ones were released with the HPM version of the toy - thats Herts Plastic Moulders i.e the initial and UK version [the one later partly filled with sweets 'cos they couldn't source the friction drives!]

HPM then lost the contract to a Hong Kong factory and the resultant JR21 logo'd [2 versions of logo positioning] Thunderbird 2 had white legs.

Is this your understanding readers?

Which one have you got?

SPECTRUM IS ....LINCOLN GREEN?

I recently saw this bundle of JR21 SPC accessories described as Lincoln. Was the Lincoln SPC the same as the JR21 toy? 

IT'S A GOOD FRIDAY!

TIME TO START THAT EASTER FUN!

WILL'S WONDERFUL BOX OF WONDROUS UNWANTED TOYS!

One of my customers bought in a box of goodies for me yesterday. Looks to be some nice things in it. Will send some more pictures when I’ve had a sort through. Will O.

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!

TADA! Tommy Buster! JR21 legendary Toy Rifle

I'm always interested in the Tommy Buster, ever since it first appeared here on it's TV21 offer page.

Here's the Japanese TADA version - yes, more TADA! - I saw on auction. There's an M logo too, presumably the Miura in the listing title, but it's new to me.

Did or Do you have a Tommy Buster?

Imagine coming down to this on Christmas morning! TADA!

THAT'S A LOT OF ROCKETS!

I love this SAS lot from 2018. There's something for everyone in it. What would you have liked?

21 CARROTS

Being an avid fan of JR21 plastic animal toys [I wrote a book about them] I was intrigued when I saw a toy similar to one of the less common ones, the Friction Carrot Eating Bunny.

You can see from these auction pictures that the JR21 bunny has somewhat bent feet as he sits on his scooter.

Linda, another Hong Kong outfit, released a Bugs Bunny on a Scooter, which also has bent feet as he balances on his carrot cart.

Both quite wonderful toys, I hope you like them too.

JOE 90'S MACS CAR in GAMES AND TOYS MARCH 1969

 Thought this was a nice advert. Will O.

DRUMMING UP BUSINESS

I always like large groups of vintage plastic toys. This lot caught my eye on The Saleroom business website so I kept the pic. 

On the far left is a T in a Circle Speedboat with the box behind it, a toy I have in my T in a Circle collection. Directly in front is the JR21 Bear Drummer. Its box is to the right on the top row and is a toy I might track down for Moonbase one day.

The green tinplate Camaro is a gorgeous R/C toy car I've bought and sold in the past. I found a boxed one at Ascot car boot sale years ago, which was quite a classy boot sale all round.

Lots of old novelty toys here. Which one do you like?

WILL O'S TV21 FIREBALL XL5

 

From Will's new TV21 comics collection, his JR21 XL5 parachuting spaceship and the ad in a November 1965 edition of the comic.

Did you have one of these XL5's or the other rockets advertised?

ELF TOYS THUNDERBIRDS LAYOUT

 

I was sent this snap by a reader who found these Elf Tracy Island parts in his parent's loft. Luckily it still has its paperwork too.

It always amazes me when one of these sets surfaces like this.  We've seen them before on MC and years ago at that but its always great to see and gives me a glimmer of hope that one day a reader will unearth a Project SWORD Moonbase Play Set somewhere!

Do you like the Elf Toys lay out?