LOOEY'S HOME-MADE THUNDERBIRDS AND STAR TREK GUM WRAPPERS .... and MORE!

Hi Woodsy! I was VERY impressed with Norman's ephemera collection. My Captain Scarlet choccy wrappers must be lurking around there too!

I was amused at the scrap booking with Sellotape holding the cherished items on place.

I have just finished my first ever Portrait of my friend Nick Stathopoulos, for the Blue Mountains Portrait Prize this year.

Nick is a Fine Artist, but I've known him since he was just a drooling fanboy and this work celebrates that history.

Here, he is surrounded by his closest friends and all the influences of his childhood ( mostly disaster movies!).

The display box is a mash-up of 1950's Bolland style amusement machines and 1970s style Greek action movie posters!

Of particular interest (maybe to Norman), are some decorations on the sides of the display box. Greek style Thunderbirds and Star Trek gum wrappers, glued down with yellowed Sellotape as if from 50 years ago!

Too bad none of them are real!

Keep on Bloggin' 

 Looey

Oz Base

Primrose Space Race Sweet Cigarettes Found!

Just wanted to share this totally unexpected find.

This packet of Primrose Space Race Sweet Cigarettes was placed between decks of playing cards at a local antiques shop. The empty packet with great graphics would have been the find of the day in itself, but with contents still there it is a little miracle!

As we did not have sweet cigarettes (but liquorice pipes instead) when kids, this was my first sighting of those cigs reminding me of little blackboard chalks with one end tipped in red. Also the collectable card, in this case no. 18 of 50, was present in the packet.

There seems to be a lot of these 1969 Space Race cards around, but not so many empty packets and even fewer full ones.

Arto

Helsinki Base

The ROCKETEER Cards

I was just looking through a carton of baseball cards collected for/by my daughter in 1993.

It has a number of odd cards from different unrelated sets such as The Avengers (Steed & Mrs Peel), MAD, Olympic Sports etc. One incomplete set was of the Disney movie THE ROCKETEER.

There are three doubles, cards 27, 71 & 77

If any blog reader needs them I'll happily send them on.

Terranova47

 from a hot, steamy Connecticut

JACK DAVIS CARDS AND BOX: TERRANOVA'S PERSONAL COLLECTION

Here's the box Valentine cards were sold in which contains my cards from the 50's & 60's.

I kept it because I was never sure who drew the illustrations. I thought it was Jack Davis at the time and it wasn't until the current exhibit that I knew for sure.

Terranova47

USA

Terranova47's Anglo Confectionery CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS Cards, 1967.

Here are the scans requested of the Anglo Confectionery gum cards; CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS from 1967.

The last scan shows the back of two cards. The complete set forms a beautifully painted poster by Ron Embleton who painted the scenes for the closing credits of the TV show. I had the poster for umpteen wrappers and a postal order, still in it's mailing tube. I have spent the last ten years looking for it. It's somewhere in the house.

The Mysterons are to blame for the sloppy scanning. The cards wouldn't lay still!

Terranova47

USA

Terranova47's Bubble Gum Cards

My early collection of bubble gum cards and similar have been kept in a retail display box from said cards circa 1958.

The cards from this box were collected because the artwork looked to be by Jack Davies or similar artist from MAD Magazine. In looking at the box now I see that the cards were under licence from TOPPS the big card company in the US

Tarzan and Captain Scarlett were from the 60's but the Funny Greetings and Western cards are 50's as was the all British Associated-Rediffusion cards of their TV shows, some British, some US.

Associated-Rediffusion was the first venture of commercial TV providing an alternative to the BBC.

The box was stored in a shoe box inside a trunk.

Enjoy!

Terranova47

USA

Brian

CREATURES OF LEGEND with Kevin Tipps

 I picked this up for Moonbase Junior ages ago. Sitting down with Grandad sticking stuff in an album is what I had mind.

This particular album and card set, Creatures of Legend, were released by tea makers PG Tips, they of the chimp mascot called Kevin Tipps ( do they still exist?)

Having only a few cards currently, I've ordered a bundle offa eBay for Junior's pleasure.

Among the album's pages of mythical predators is Scylla, a six-headed Sicilian cave hag. Like much of the artwork in this set, Scylla's principle head has been lifted from that classic 1980's Vampire flick, Fright Night, you know,  the one with Roddy McDowell as the failed TV horror host and the screechy kid Evil Ed (who went on to star in much less mainstream fayre!)

The old gruesome twosome Drac and Frankie have to be included. The artwork is inspired by Hammer and Universal respectively.

Perhaps my favourite illustration is King Kong. I would say it's been inspired by the 1976 Kurt Russell Konger, would you?

TRAPPED!

Bit grisly but when you're a young kid its grisliness that catches the eye. TRAPPED was my favourite card in the Civil War News card set that my big brother had. I used to wonder, where the hell was his leg!?

Happy Halloween!

 

Space Cadets

 

Yet another foray into the world of sweet and cigarette card collecting revealed an older set of cards from Cadet Sweets, who are interesting advertised on the back of the card as being based on the famous Slough Industrial estate which was home to Century 21 in the sixties. These cards are a reproduction set from originals produced in 1957.

The majority of the set covers the usual fare, with the origins of rocketry and early attempts at powered flight, before moving on to early rockets and missiles. As the set is effectively prior to the first manned space mission, the space exploration theme which follows is exclusively speculative, taking its cues from the work of Werner Von Braun and Arthur c. Clarke. 

Many of the manned program images owe their inspiration from the March 1952 issue of Colliers magazine, which featured an expansive article by Von Braun and Willy Ley, entitled 'We Will conquer Space Soon' and showed the classic Braun designs for space wheel and multi stage rockets.

Interestingly, the actual proposed landing vehicles for the Moon and Mars are more akin to the design showed in Arthur C. Clarke's seminal publication 'The Exploration of Space' from 1951, in which he proposed a simple cylindrical moon lander, as opposed to Von Braun's vast machines composed of a skeletal framework surrounding fuel tanks and crew capsules.

     

Among the more futuristic example cards are a pair showing a commercial airliner, with a forward swept delta wing configuration. Whilst Thunderbird 2 is probably the most memorable example of the swept wing in science fiction designs and the concept may appear to be very contemporary, the concept was first discussed as far back as 1934 and was considered my the Soviet and nazi military in 1944.

Ju 287 Bomber

The Junkers Ju287 was a jet engined swept wing bomber and the earlier Belyayev DB-LK was a proposed flying wing design for the russian airforce.

Belyayev DB-LK

The Eagle comic was an early exponent of space travel in the fifties and sixties, with the Dan Dare strip, and often featured cutaway features of various aircraft and spaceships, by the artist Lesley Ashwell Wood, who also later published his work in the excellent 'Inside Information' series of children's books. One of his illustrations for Eagle shows a large cylindrical ship reminiscent of the Cadet vehicles.

THE EXPLORERS ARE EXCITED

Woodsy,

So I’m going through piles of old papers, and out pops this near-mint bubblegum card, of which I have no memory! “Mysterious Mars.” Apparently from a series called “Space Cards,” but other than that it’s a mystery to me!

Rob C

USA

GARARA YAMAKATSU CARDS

These Garara Yamakatsu cards caught my eye on an auction. I saved the pics for the blog. I had thought the Japanese movie shown was The Green Slime but I didn't think so. Any ideas readers?

Anyone got the vehicles shown as kits or toys?

TOPPS CUSTOM CARS CARDS

I just found this set of 66 US trading cards featuring wild custom cars, some of which have been made as kits or die-casts. Some of them are film or TV cars.

Both the front and back are shown. By Topps, with copyright T.C.G. on the back, and Prtd. in U.S.A. According to the listing the set is from 1968.

https://tvmoviecards.com/products/hot-rods-topps-1968-george-barris-custom-cars-vintage-trading-card-set-of-67

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Lyons Trade Cards Index

Nice to see that readers liked the Lyons Tea Cards - Wings of Speed.

I decided to see what other sets Lyons issued and discovered this index:

 https://www.kzwp.com/lyons1/cards2.htm

Looks like the various Lyons Brands outstripped Brooke Bond in its range of cards, including Star Trek and Space 1999.

Maybe other readers have some of those sets?

Terranova47

USA

YOU'LL DIE LAUGHING SERIES 1 SLIDESHOW 1959

 

I adored these cards and the black and white series too.  They came my way in the Sixties via my older brother, who collected them. I still have a few but not my originals alas.

This terrific Slideshow by ahsandworms on You Tube.

DINOSAUR ATTACKS!

I remember seeing a set of Dinosaur attacks gum cards at Memorabilia at the NEC about 20 years ago. They were on a stall next to the copy set of Mars Attacks cards I bought to replace - sort of  - the original genuine set I'd sold the year before.

Like Mars Attacks but nowhere near as old Dinosaur Attacks cards are gory and full of scenes of utter carnage. Above is a good example but I've avoided the gore.

Is this a set you know or have readers?

ANGLO GUM SPV

I love the artwork on this Anglo gum card from the 1967 Captain Scarlet set. The travel of the SPV and the curve of the road are just wonderful. I like the copter too but don't recognise it. Do you?

Who was the artist?