It's Just Not Cricket!

The SpaceX Cricket has a long history on Moonbase and a really long history as a toy. Here's a 1965 ad I saw on Piclic for the Remco Mosquito Jeep. Is this a toy you had? Think Hamiltons Invaders and Monkey Division!

My New Cricket - The Long Distance Rover! A Birthday Arrival

Way back (or so it seems) in early August, Woodsy spotted an auction on Ebay US for a Spacex Cricket copy, advertised as a 'Hamilton Invaders Vehicle' or some such. Its the one pictured above.

As I am a huge fan of the Cricket design and all its many variations - all of which appear to stem from the Remco Hamilton Invaders Mosquito Jeep below - Woodsy gave me the heads-up.

The Spacex version is the original toy that I came across, as a child with a later variation appearing in the Spacex II line in the form of the Apollo Tracker. Later, with the advent of the internet and ebay, other versions appeared, as army missile launchers and more military style jeep models.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2015/05/cricket-team-spacex-cricket-clones-and.html

As this particular model was a new one to me, I looked into trying to acquire it, but as it was US only, it proved difficult. So I asked Terranova, a good friend and blog contributor, to see if he might expedite matters for me. 

He very generously did, bidding on the item and winning it for me with no opposition and receiving it by post at his home address, before re-posting to me in England. This however, is where the fun begins!

The item was listed as being in Wisconsin in the United States and Terranova is resident in New York, some 900+ miles away. So the little car travelled across the mid West and arrived in New York in short order. Terranova then parcelled it up and re-posted to UK, on the assumption that it would be leaving from the main dispatch point of New York. 

USPS clearly decided that this was an outer space vehicle, used to traversing long distances, so sent it to Cincinnati. Then it spent a few days visiting various departments, before taking off for Chicago!     For a few more days it was passed around various facilities there, before someone decided to pass it on - back to New York! 

A diligent USPS operative must have noticed the address label and passed it on again to - Chicago again. Once more a day or so passed and it went off to New York again! By this time it was early September and I began to despair that the little toy was going to be lost in the mess of sorting offices, but then I got another tracking email to say it had arrived in Texas!

Just as I was about to write it off as lost, the Houston office must have finally noticed the UK address and very shortly it arrived in London. 

I had a couple of days quiet panic as it fell into the Customs Office black hole and I feared the worst, but at the beginning of this week it finally appeared, unscathed!

As you can see from the shots above, it is very similar to the Triang Spacex version, with some minor differences. The silver grille on the bonnet has less striations and the dome is smaller and cast in blue plastic. 

The cannon is non-functional and cast in two parts and is glued in place. There are no makers marks apart from the obligatory 'Made in Hong Kong' on the base. It was missing the two from chrome hubcaps when it arrived, so I popped in a couple of Spacex originals. 

A few similar models in different colours have surfaced recently and you can read more about the Crickets chequered history over at Paul Vreede's excellent Spacex site here.

Its been a long journey for the little toy and I am very pleased with it and I would just like to extend my gratitude again to Terranova, without who's help I would not have been able to add this little gem to my collection!

THE MOLTO JEEP 'CRICKET': A NEW BOX

The green Jeep Militar by Molto looks a superb military toy

Its a Spanish deadringer for the blog favourite SpaceX Cricket pictured below [photo: Ed Berg]

Here's the green Jeep in the 1971 Molto catalogue as released in Spain, centre left.

So I was pleased to see a box I think is new to the blog.

It features the Jeep in military mode on all its sides.

I think there must be a crane version out there somewhere like the one pictured.

The toy itsef we've seen before.

This is a particularly fine specimen I saw on an auction site.

It featured a set of paper instructions I'd not seen before with some nice illustrations of the Jeep's various parts.

Anyone got one of these bad boys?

REMCO CRICKET SQUAD

Remco's 3 'crickets': the green Mosquito Jeep, the white Tiger Jeep [not pictured] and the yellow Star Trek Astrocruiser, were all deployed in space and faced giant bugs a plenty. 

Here's a 1964 ad.

A 1964 boxed set.

A 1969 Star trek Astrocruiser

I liked this piccy on Etsy showing a SpaceX Cricket facing a very different kind of Bug!

pics: etsy, hakes, l&l collectables

amidst the boats and carts sat a blue cricket

I stumbled across this bundle of joy online. Its an old Ebay photo of a long-since ended auction.

What first caught my eye was the Apollo Moon Exploring red and white rocket among the tractors and trains, together with what looks like the red space glider from the same series by Imperial.

But then I noticed the BLUE Cricket P-1 [minus its canon] to the left. What the? 

Aren't they usually purple?

*

Postscript:

Found this close up of the very same cricket! It does look blue!

and by way of elimination, its not the SpaceX cricket knockoff from The Futuristic Space Vehicle series, pictured below, which is clearly metallic green paint.

None of these either!

or any of the other ones we've featured here over the years as seen in the post Cricket Team.

SPACEX APOLLO TRACKER

I was very pleasantly surprised yesterday when a small parcel arrived in the post from our blog friend and Spacex enthusiast, Paul Vreede.

I had no idea what it was as I opened it in anticipation.  A small note from Paul read, " Hi, Mike, You once mentioned you could use one of these, hope you like it."

I opened the small wrapped object inside and found to my delight a lovely replica triple radar dish that was missing from my Spacex Apollo Tracker.

I put the new dish on my Tracker and, hey presto! It looked the business.

So, I hastily put together a diorama  to enhance the Tracker's new found splendour, and along with it's brother, the Spacex Cricket P1,  took a few snaps.

They certainly both look the part

Thanks again, Mr Vreede.