The Reel ANT

Copyright British Pathe

Film Clip dated 9th December 1965 - just click on it.

Two years before the SWORD Annual - now that's really ANTtastic!

Plas-Tex Aerocar Restoration by Ferryman

Hi Woodsy, Another restoration project taken care of recently was this 1950's Plas-Tex Aerocar from the States. I know this a good decade earlier than the usual space toys that you feature but I think it is worth a mention as it is a particularly fine piece of futuristic design and a very rare toy.

This came to me in heavily played with condition with a lot of scratches, chips, cracks and a broken wing held on by thirty year old sticky tape - all pictured above. I sanded most of the marks and tape residue out of the plastic and polished it up. I glued the wing back on with styrene cement. The end result is very displayable as shown below.

More to follow, Ferryman

PERRY RHODAN-T

The 1964 Grumman MOLAB pictured above may not have made it to the toy factory but it did have it's day in the SWORD Annual as the ANT [pictured below second down]. It also featured in the UK's Look and Learn comic in Wee Willie Winkie below. 

Reader Toad has stumbled across it in a FILM! From the SWORDtastic year of 1967, Mission Stardust is a German Perry Rhodan movie. This You Tube clip is part 2. The ANT appears from the word go. ANTtastic! Any more ANTS or MOLABS on film or in print or in toy form?

originally posted

Moonbase 3

Moonbase 3

Copyright BBC [via Wikipedia]

Page Boy

Not feeling too hot tonight so can't blog much. Here's a mini-gallery of some of my fave books from my childhood in the Sixties.

What were yours?

PS. Comic Illustrators Quiz results will be anounced tomorrow. Competition now closed.

Space Cards Twenty Years Apart from Andy B

Woodsy, As an enthusiast for retro-style space images, and a one-time collector of cigarette cards (in my days in the playground), I often prowl ebay to see what's about. Two interesting discoveries pictured above- a 1959 set of ABC gum cards about space which I had never come across before, and much odder, some cigarette cards form 1939 with space images! I have cleaned them up in case theyr'e useful for the blog.

Best wishes,

Andy B.

PS. Beautiful cards AB! Thanks for sharing. The 1939 images are amazing!

The Armstrong Whitworth Manned Satellite

Reader Barry Hinchcliffe has kindly sent in the above vintage articles for readers' enjoyment.

Thanks Barry.

L.A.M.A Karma

Reader Ferryman was recently thrilled to find these loose Spacex II toys in a boxed Apollo Exploration Set: the L.A.M.A. Lunar Anti-Meteorite Attacker and MOLAB. He has kindly sent them to me for sharing on the blog. He has also placed what he thinks is the original missile in the LAMA canon. The Molab pictured below was also in great shape and even had the original green missiles. SpaceXcellent!

Ferryman has also kindly shared pictures of the boxed Apollo Exploration Set, which will follow this weekend.

Martin Scout

Reader Barry Hinchcliffe has emailed me this fab black and white cutaway of a vintage Martin design. I can see elements of all sorts of SWORD craft in there particularly Taskforce 3 and Scout 2. what do you think?

Louis Glanzman's Booster Rocket

From A TOM CORBETT Space Cadet Adventure STAND BY FOR MARS!

By CAREY ROCKWELL, 1952.

Illustrator: Louis Glanzman.

[Borrowed from Zooger which states that Project Gutenberg Transcriber''s Note: Extensive search has failed to uncover any evidence of renewal of copyright of this work]