Case in Point

 I like this International Secret Agent Set.

There's everything in there except the cloak and dagger.

The Clint Eastwood lookalike mashes up the genres too. Dirty Harry gets the case and is running point.

The Dinner Club and Bank Bright Star credit cards date it to 1979.

I'm wondering if Bright Star is the maker.

It's educational too. There's a world map and national flags!

Is this a set you would have enjoyed as a kid? 

Spy or Sport? A Gun too Far?

Being a boomer boy I love toy guns. I always did and that allure has never faded.

However a toy I saw on eBay entered that grey area, where a toy maybe something more realistic. 

This cased Masudaya SS5 is such an item

Looking at it it doesn't have the plastic innocence of say the Secret Sam attache case that I had or a James Bond toy gun set.

It could be an actual sport gun rather than a toy?

What do you think?

https://share.google/xv5v1xJlbSbWAOQ7g 

A Case for Joe 90

I adored my Century 21 Toys Joe 90 attached case as a kid. It was a magnificent toy crammed with all Joe's trademark gizmos.

The secret inner compartments folded up neatly to finish up with this cool as a cucumber black case.

 Being a bit of an attache case nut again I do miss it and my only regret as a toy seller was letting go of my more modern Vivid Imaginations version of the toy about twenty years ago.

Have you any Joe 90 stuff?

Len Deighton, Novelist, RIP

Hi Woodsy

I expect you have already seen this, but I just spotted a news item on the death of writer Len Deighton (18th February 1929- 15th March 2026), aged 97. You have mentioned him so often, and I even have his cookbook, as well as a couple of the films based on his novels.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

*

Woodsy adds:

Thanks Paul, It's a great shame. I associate Len Deighton with my late Dad really, so it feels doubly sad, as it was his taste in novels. Deighton stood in his bookcase alongside Sixties writers Alistair McClean, John le Carre and Jack Higgins. My Dad was in the Navy in WWII and enjoyed his post-war spies in particular, which rubbed off on me during the Sixties spy craze and I still have the spy bug.

I haven't read any of Len Deighton's books myself, which I ought to rectify, if anything, to see what my Dad liked so much. The titles are part of spy book culture now, like Funeral in Berlin.

Several became famous Michael Caine movies, him playing the tough bespectacled Harry Palmer in Billion Dollar Brain, Funeral in Berlin and The Ipcress File, perhaps the most well-known. 

Here's Funeral in Berlin on VHS, given the Caine cover treatment.

The Ipcress File even made it to the toy factory and became a Milton Bradley board game. Now as collectable as Harry Palmers specs it's one I've never seen in the flesh ( not to be confused with the Odessa File game, which I have owned).

Have you any Len Deighton or Harry Palmer books and things?

The Man from Uncle See Through Walls Pen by Hidden Devices

 Years ago I got hold of a Propmasters catalogue offering for sale the personal Man from Uncle memorabilia collection of David Oliver, Propmasters founder.

Listed was a rare UK version of the Marx Man from Uncle Counterspy Set from 1966.

Unlike the US version, this one was listed with a Big Pen included.

I've never known what that Big Pen was. 

This week I found out about a Marx See Through Walls pen offered as a US mail in in the Sixties. It's chunky, maybe that means big?

See what you think. Could this be the mysterious Counterspy Set big pen? 

Case Overload

 Whilst collecting spy attache cases this Spring I gathered a few photos of various sets in a small archive.

This is it.

Do you have any of these?

Walkie Talkie Smoker Spy

 I can't get enough of spy toys.

Here's a trio I saw on auction and kept the pics.

Simple walkie talkies.

The classic Pipe gun! Smokin!

So much in this fab lot! 

What do you like?

Clint Bond

 This is a neat spy toy set I saw on auction. The toy pistol and silencer remind me of my Joe 90 items in the 1960's attache case.

But James Bond, the agent looks more like Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force to me.

What do you think readers?

A Case of Having To

 I bought a Ryan's World spy case for a squid.

It was empty and there was no way I could find the missing parts cheaply.

So I sprayed it black and set off on a mission!

Hope you don't recognise my new case!