Philip's Cake Topper Space Diorama via Paul V

Paul,

My name is Phillip Gore and I live in Trussville, AL (USA). I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed viewing the Triang Spacex website that you helped put together. I just found this site a few weeks ago when I started looking for information on the LP Hong Kong 1"(30mm) Spacemen figures and Mercury Capsule. Like probably a lot of middle aged male adults, I had these toys as a very young boy. I still recall the great times I had playing with them and the great memories they brought.

I recently was fortunate enough to purchase an old "Cake Topper Space Exploration" set on eBay for the very low price of $17.00 dollars (US). I was originally buying the set for the blue LP Mercury Capsule and had no interest in the other pieces that came with it. I was very surprised and extremely pleased when I saw the set also included three of the 1"(30mm) Spacemen! They were in white plastic with a good bit of flash on them so that is probably why I could not make them out from the eBay photos.

Anyway, I decided to rework the Spacemen and Mercury Capsule and put them in a lunar landscape diorama. I am a plastic model builder so it was easy to make the upgrade. I wanted to share what I have done with you. Attached are photos of the parts and final display. The modifications made are listed below:

Spacemen: trimmed off plastic flash and added a new paint job

Mercury Capsule: Added new wheels and axle, added hands and paint job to pilot, filled in and sanded/reshaped nose cone section, sanded away glue buildup on heat shield/retro rocket package, drilled rocket nozzle openings, repainted interior black and exterior blue

I hope you enjoy the photos. Thanks again and take care.

Phillip Gore

USA

*

Kindly forwarded by Paul Vreede

Alienation

A recent trip to Woodsy's favourite local car boot came up trumps for me, as having spent an enjoyable morning surfing the stalls with the man himself, I decided to have one last turn round the tables, while Woodsy took the load off with a coffee.

One stall in particular had loads of vintage stuff, books, toys, ephemera and for once, wasn't commanding silly ebay prices. In the middle of the table was a small tin box, loaded up with badges, seventies novelty key rings, bits of toys and other odds and sods. On my first pass, there were a couple of blokes furtively scouring the box for what looked like enamel badges, so I couldn't get near. On my return, I saw a gap and dived in, hoping to find a space themed badge or a nice retro keyring. Amongst the bits and pieces I found an Airfix Captain Eagle figure, but missing his feet, so he stayed put. There were several nice keyrings that I recognised from my childhood, like footballs, a met wood axe and a london taxi. Just as I was about to call it a day, I uncovered a small capsule and to my surprise, saw that it contained one of the silver spacemen that I had been collecting for years.

This little chap was very familiar, as he appears in the large Apollo Moon Exploring box sets and often crops up in the little LP window box sets. He also has a larger brother in the form of the rubber 'Moon Platoon' series, six aliens with sucker pads on the bottom. These also found their way into the jumping toys range, with flat vacformed versions attached to a spring base.

When I got him home, I saw that cosmetically, he was almost identical to the little silver LP figures, but was flatter and his feet disapeared into the base at the ankles. He's also slightly flatter in profile, with inferior casting detail. Still, he is a lovely rare little thing and the base of the capsule (which is glued shut) has the usual detail 'Made in Hong Kong' and the company 'Brabo'.

A quick google on the name reveals that Brabo deal chiefly with inexpensive novelities and toys, such as the dangling rubber figures like skeletons and spacemen and bendy poseable animals. An image search popped up an expired auction on Worthpoint, of 'Hula' figures inside the same kind of capsule too.
 

Here is the original Moon Platoon figure and below are the jumping jack figures and the Moon Exploring/Dekkertoys figures, which are the same scale as the Brabo one, but with sharper detail.

Send in the Clowns: LP Circus Cars

These LP Lik B Circus Cars are so fab. We may have seen the toys before but the boxes are new to Moonbase.

For the serious LP collector.

Do you like them?

 https://share.google/YGzxIALVe7oQkH5ND 

Tony's Astronauts

 Kindly sent in by reader Tony E. 

His cool hand-painted spacemen.

LPUFO

I had to look twice at these on an auction last year. 

Larger LP astronauts, they've been painted in the style of UFO spacemen and rather well I reckon.

What do you think? 

Have you painted any astronauts?

Space Explorer Car by LN

 This lovely item was recently seen on auction by Arto, a gorgeous Space Exploration Car.

It's a blister carded Hong Kong friction toy released by LN, model no. 3086.

I'm pretty sure I've seen a similar One Man submarine toy.

Anyone got anything like it? 

Dekker Toys Journey Into Space: London's Apollo Moon Exploring

 Seen late last year, whoa!

New to me and maybe the blog, Dekker Toys of London Journey into Space play set! 

Holy Smoke! It's got the lot! 

Look at that playmat! 

There's LP and Apollo Moon Exploring!

And familiar space trucks!

Aliens!

All neatly boxed up.

That's one lucky new owner who won this!

Is is a set you know?  

Up and Down with LP's Clown

 It's great to get close ups from an auction of the LP clown car. 

Looking a lot like an early Pennywise, he's all geared up to trundle in his motor.

Looking at the axle it probably bobbed up and down too.

It's always interesting to see more of LPs output, besides their better-known space toys and astronauts.

Have you got any LP toys readers? 

Click on the labels for more LP.

LP MUSICIANS

 Speaking of LP musicians, here's a small orchestra of them I saw on a Japanese site. They get around!

All numbered on the base, this harpist, A8, is also clearly showing the LP logo.

Have you got any of these Hong Kong musicians?

LP FARMERS

These two mini farmer figures are so darn cute. The husband is carrying a lamb and the wife a tub of corn maybe.

(Pinocchio looks mean!)

The farmers, as far as I know, are part of LP's huge Hong Kong range of small plastic novelty figures, which includes musician animals and clowns.

Interestingly these two are numbered simply as A.

Have you any little farmers or any figures numbered with letters readers?

LP and Britains Space Set?

 There's strange goings on here.

This carded set in my old pics archive is a mixture of chromed LP Moon Platoon aliens and what appears to be a Britains Starguard figure, also chromed. 

Is this something you've seen before readers? 

LN Cartoon Animals and LP Space Dogs

LP/ Lik Be plastic Space Dogs have appeared here a few times. 

This old auction shot - full of goodness or what! - shows two brown ones in the centre, in header carded bags. There's a fascinating link to LP's space domes, which you can read about on my good friend Paul Vreede's cool SpaceX toys site.

Of interest to fans who collect these are LN's Cartoon Animals.

Similarly header bagged, these cute Hong Kong appear to have rolling eyes, although the header says friction motor, so they're not true rollers like LP's.

I love the space scene on the headers! 

Anyone got any?

Galleon Star Adventurer

This neat Star Adventurer was listed on Vectis as being issued by Galleon of Hong Kong.

Most of us will think of it as LP / Lik Be.

Galleon has come up before in MC, having released a 2001 Space Glider.

Who are Galleon?

Ed's Buck Rogers HG Toys Galactic Play Set

Woodsy,

Here's one of about two dozen playsets sitting out in The Cave that I finally took off the shelf and started photographing. 

I don't have all the photos taken yet but this will give you an indication of the treasures within this set.

The playset is based on the television series which ran from 1979-81 and HG Toys did a really nice job in packing a lot of action into a relatively small playset.

There are:

Three distinct sets of figures:

-Character figures from the TV series

-Space Commandos

-Robo Aliens (provided by LP)

Spaceships:

-Two brown Draconian Marauders of the Draconian Empire (the bad guys)

-Two white starfighters

(I still need to apply the stickers onto the spaceships and then photograph them)

-One large flying saucer. 

The words 'Star Station X-5' are molded into the upper hull, and this saucer is a hold-over from previous HG space playsets like their 'Alien Attack' and 'Space Wars' playsets. 

(The box art shows a blue saucer, but I've only ever seen yellow)

Cardboard Graphics:

-Seven separate graphics depicting alien landscapes and a landing strip

From Vegas Base

Ed of The 25th & 3/4's Century