Go Go Motor! Asahi!

I recently clocked this beauty in Buyee Japan, a 1960s Asahi Toys pull-back Moon Rocket. It's 24 inches long too! 

What a beauty with a box to cry over! It's reminiscent of other toys like the SWORD Cape Kennedy rocket.

You like? 

The Countdown has Started!

 

This is the US Saturn 5 plastic toy model released by Countdown circa 1969.

At first glance you could mistake it for the Century 21 Toys Cape Kennedy toy.

I understand that the Countdown model was available at Cape Kennedy itself.

Does anyone have one?

Cosmic Coastline

As Orion zooms towards the dark side I saw this old flyer for space resorts on Florida's rocket coast. I've heard of Coco Beach but not the other two, Titusville and Melbourne. 

Are you familiar with those places?

THE STUPENDOUS SATURN V ILLUSTRATION

I love this illustration by an unnamed artist from inside Popular Mechanics July 1967. 

You could even get a copy of it as a colour print! I wonder if anyone did? Do you like it?

To see the full article on the Saturn V check it out in here:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=x9MDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=saturn+v+model+popular+mechanics&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiMqIjypt78AhUzQ0EAHV-cA5QQ6AF6BAgHEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false

CAPE KENNEDY 1966: ON THE BUS

This is amazing, the public bus tour to Cape Kennedy 1966 courtesy of the Kirby's on YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gITV7Zv3_5k

Have you been there?

NEW TO THE BLOG: SWORD CAPE KENNEDY SET BOXES IN HONG KONG TOY FACTORY ON FILM

Hong Kong toy factory workers using flattened Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Set boxes as production line table covers! What do you make of it?

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA38SVVZCW74P7YBE5RXEE4OHWF-HONG-KONG-MAKING-CHRISTMAS-TOYS-FOR-1971/query/hong+kong+toys

CAPE KENNEDY ROCKET RACK TOY: HOW DO YOU PLAY WITH IT?

This set is at first glance a bit of a mystery.

Is it a sort of splashdown set? I say this because I can see an aircraft carrier in there.

But what about the capsule? Does it in some way fire the round green rotors?

The Nike Hercules missile looks like its ejected from a spring-loaded red stand.

As for the header art, it looks like a photograph. is it a still from a film? Anyone know?

Is the backing card graphic a sort of playmat? A seascape? A chart? A launch site?

Anyone got this space toy set?

GENERAL ELECTRIC BOB McCALL CALENDAR

I like this painting by Bob McCall. Its from an old calendar I saw online.

Did you have any space related calendars or Bob McCall prints?

National Geographic Cape Kennedy Set

I love this space helmet toy I saw on the Bay this year.

I saved these images.

It opens out to reveal one half as a neat lunar diorama

but the bit I love is the other half, a Saturn V diorama complete with red gantry and crawler just like the Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Set!

It was released by learning kings National Geographic but I don't know when.

You got one?

Saturn V: Toy Roll Out and Lift Off

There's some beautiful footage of a model Saturn V rocket blasting off from its launch pad and gantry here.

Its from You Tube and appears about half way through.

Rocketry has always fascinated me but I never had actual firing rockets as a kid. Did you?

What I did have was the Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Set with its own Saturn V back in '67.

Made by Century 21 Toys it as a bundle of battery-operated rocket fun!

I had more fun with my set a few years aback as you can see from this You Tube short I did at the time. 

I always thought Century 21 Toys could have released a large plastic biulding, the VAB, as an accessory to this toy, maybe even flat-packed IKEA style!

They didn't so I made my own from a cardboard box.

Enjoy!

tony k's cape kennedy set

Hiya Woodsy

I've just finished admiring Jeff J's amazing Sears Rocket Base. That is a top quality piece of vintage toy rocketry! 

At the other end of the scale, those aspiring moon-shot men of yesterdays Hong Kong toy industry weren't to be left out of the Space Race. 

Here's a couple of snaps showing one of their colourfully ambitious attempts to reach the stars :)

Tony K

pierce the plastic sky

If you can't beat 'em join 'em I say!

Here's my meagre contribution to the great launchpad expose.

Its a Tai Hing Space Shuttle borrowing some launch time on the Century 21 Cape Kennedy Set mobile launch pad.

pacific rim roll out

Just watching Pacific Rim on TV.

Early on I couldn't help noticing the Saturn 5 type crawler taking Jaeger Gypsy Danger out from what looked like the NASA VAB!

Then a helicopter flew past and I thought, Yes! Roll Out as in the Cape Kennedy Set box art from Project SWORD!

Do you like Pacific Rim readers? Did any toys come out? A Jaeger crawler even?

IT COULD BE PROJECT SWORD: RC SATURN V

I love this short You Tube clip of a model Saturn V rocket being launched in the States in 2009. All beautifully constructed it really could be a Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Set!  What do you think readers?

https://youtu.be/cNyN3bBV08I?t=2m48s

THE REAL ROLL OUT

Picture: Nasa

CAPE KENNEDY MOMENT

Picture: NASA

May 20th 1969

from the NASA Apollo 11 Image Gallery

SATURN V ROLL-OUT IN LENTICULAR AND MINIATURE FAKING STYLES

My good friend Arto recently donated this lenticular postcard of the Saturn V roll-out to the Moonbase collection. Its the one on the left. On the right is the original Bob McCall painting of the roll-out, which was used for the Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Set box top.

The content of the lenticular card fascinates Arto and me. We are convinced that its a model. It certainly isn't the Project SWORD toy that's been used. So who made the model and where is it now?

To get my head around lenticularisation of images, I have turned to a modern field wholly new to me, miniature faking, a technique whereby the content of normal images is made to look like a model. The makers of the Roll-out card in the Sixties couldn't have done this but it might be interesting for me to do now because I can't lenticularise!

Using the free facility on a miniature faking site I have 'faked' two old NASA photographs of Saturn V's roll-out. One of them actually has cars and a helicopter like the McCall and lenticular images above. Here they are. What do you think?

Below are the two original NASA images that I used.

Any thoughts readers?

MYSTERY PANEL IN THE PROJECT SWORD CAPE KENNEDY SET

This was in my photo archive and I've only just noticed it. Its from an Ebay auction earlier this year of a Century 21 Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Set.

The odd things is that the base of the rocket has what appears to be a panel missing from the side! Its a very neat rectangular hole and looks like it should be there!

I've never noticed this on my own toy and don't recall it when I was a kid. I shall have to go in the loft and check mine but in the meantime any ideas readers?

REMOTE POSSIBILITIES: THE RED REMOTE CONTROL MYSTERY OF PROJECT SWORD

In the 1990's I acquired my Century 21 Project SWORD Cape Kennedy Set. It came with a soft plastic red remote control with two yellow buttons.

Only years later did I find out that this remote was the wrong one. It should have looked like the stick unit below.

I had thought that maybe mine was another Century 21 remote unit like the one on this Thunderbird 1 but its not the same.

So I was amazed to see yet another Project SWORD toy this year with the same one when this Scramble Bug appeared on Ebay with the same red remote as mine. The remote's cable is inserted where the toy's on-off switch would normally be.

This is it from the inside.

In an attempt to ID this red remote and see whether it may have been standard practice by toy companies to use it instead of the original I had a good look round for other examples.

One I found was this Lincoln steerable Bulldozer. On the box the advertised remote is the stick type not dissimilar to that of the C21 Cape Kennedy Set.

However the actual toy has that red remote again!

What is going on readers? Is their a remote chance that when toy companies ran out of stick controls they stuck on a cheaper red unit instead? Or was it techy kids or is it modern collectors changing the remotes? What do you think?

CAPE KENNEDY SET LENTICULAR POSTCARD

Hey Woodsy

Don't know if you've seen this? I found it on ebay. It is a 4 x 5 lenticular postcard from Japan, mid 60s. Very, very fine lens, extremely detailed. Thought you might get a kick out of it. Here it is side by side with Bob McCall's artwork. It looks like someone actually built a toy/model to stage the exact image in his painting. It could just be a very, very realistic painting, but it looks like a toy or maquette of some kind.

Cheers

Rob Godwin

Canada

Woodsy says: Amazing! is it really a model? For more of these lenticular cards then check out John Sisson's fab Dreams of Space blog.