Hatchet Job

One of Toad's earliest seismic contributions to the blog was an old article concerning a SWORD toy display at Hatchett's nightclub in London in the late Sixties. I've recently re-blogged the whole article but the pictures has always fascinated me in terms of which toys are included. You can see for yourself above in as large a scale I can get on the blog. I do love the Hatchett's logo, it really sits well with the SWORD tagline and I suppose is sort of connected: swords, hatchetts! [but why on earth choose this venue for a toy display, a nightclub of all places?]

I've had a go at identifying the toys and my results are below. There are a few Apollo Saturns, Moon Buses etc, which presumabley came out of the boxes they had. There's nothing exotic like the nuclear Ferry I don't think but there are some boxes I just can't make out. What do you think they are?

UP, Up and oh its gone..

The 1970 Airfix toy catalogue had a lot of cool stuff in it, including the Diving Submarine, Water Rocket and tucked away in the corner, an Arrowcopter. As a kid, I always loved flying toys like gliders and flying saucers and frisbees etc. The Arrowcopter seemed to be a really simple catapult like toy and at the time, passed by my attention. It wasnt till years later, when I was on holiday in Cornwall that I saw that the Arrowcopter was still being produced today.

I snapped one up, more for nostalgias sake than any expectation of it actually working. When I got back to the camp site, I opened it up and took off to the big field leading down the beach. The Arrowcopter is basically a pair of plastic wings attached to a weighted pole. As the 'copter ascends, the wings are folded back, as it reaches the apex and falls back to Earth, the wings bring it back, spinning like a sycamore seed.
The whole assembly was launched by a simple elastic band, so I stood in the middle of the field, casually drew back the band and aimed for the sky. Either I misjudged the strength of the band or the aerodynamic properties of the Arrowcopter, but as I released it, it literally vanished into the ether.  The packs says it reaches 300 feet and i could well believe it! It shot straight up and disappeared from view. I assume it must have come down somewhere, but i couldnt see it descend and several hours of patient searching revealed nothing! I had to wait another 12 months till I returned for another holiday in Falmouth before I could buy another - and this time, I left it securely in the packet.

GOLDEN ADVERTS: The Advertising of Multiple Toymakers Golden Astronaut toys

Raiding my old photo archive for pics of US Golden Astronaut advertising has revealed the above bits and pieces. Not a great deal really so I'm sure there must be more out there somewhere.

The colour catalogue pages are from JC Penneys. For $8.88 you could get all 'four sets', which it describes in some detail. Interestingly it includes a blue Nuclear Pulse and a yellow Space Patrol 1, which we've discussed before on the blog but I do just love 'em!

The black and white Montgomery Wards catalogue page advertises their 'big astro set exclusive at Wards' and, assuming they're the same, it cost a whole $2 less than Penneys! Did the Wards set have 'exclusive' packaging?

The 'Cape Multiple' trade ad is interesting as it suggests that Multiple Toymakers ran out of stock of Golden Astronaut at some point presumably around 1970 [I wonder if Sales Manager Bob Barrett is still with us?]. This ad might well have been part of my own collection had it not got lost on the post somewhere between the States and Blighty several years ago after I shelled out for it on Feebay. Golden drats! I've a feeling the original picture was in colour. Does anyone know?

The legal 'Notice to the Trade' is also of note as it suggests, albeit obscured by the ebay seller, that Multiple Toymakers/ Miner Industries were sick of bootlegs and knockoffs of Golden Astronaut. There were so many, wonder which they took to court? It must be on file somewhere. I'm assuming they didn't mean Tri-ang SpaceX!

The final pic is of the mythical Golden Astronaut Club badge and ID card, which I got from Ebay a few years ago - the picture that is. Wonder what else you got as a member or was this it? Anyone know?

KILLERS IN THE MIST

Well, I'm sat here at Moonbase with a cold bottle of zero alcohol Cobra watching England's first game in this year's European Football Championships aka Euro 2012. Watching England is a bit like being an ambulance driver not knowing what the next accident will be like! 90 minutes of pure torture!

To steady my nerves I'm distracting my mind by trying to think of a word that describes the mist inside the egg field in the Derelict in ALIEN. You know, the mist that reacts when Kane walks through it. My brain's been doing mental penalties! First up is hyperbaric, which means pressures above normal atmospheric. Nope. Next comes thixotropic describing a gel which changes from viscous to fluid when shaken or stirred. Close but nope.

So what about photoplasmic, like the plasma balls, which throw lightning towards your hands. But therein lies a problem. I'm unsure if the egg mist in ALIEN is reactive to Kane's torchlight or to his touch. There's a similar phenomenon in PROMETHEUS, which is easier to say is simple melting. Which could help with ALIEN. Is the mist reacting to a rise in temperature? Oh, I don't know. Do you?

Well, England and France have drawn 1:1 so the mental gym is closed for our evening meal.

LOOK! MY TENDER! CUSTOM SPACEX CRASH TENDER TOY CONCEPT

Posting the Gang of Five rare SpaceX toys the other night whet my appetite for what they might look like carded up and shop fresh.

Well, in a fit of unabashed enthusiasm, here's my attempt at a custom SpaceX Crash Tender! I've used a picture of  the die-cast Chara Hot Wheels Thunderbirds Fire Tender as the toy itself, which I hope you agree ain't that bad a choice. The card front has been borrowed from Frank Bellamy's beautiful crash tender art in TV21 as have the two 'free' trading cards you 'get' with this imagineered toy. Acceptable?

Sunday Service

Well its the fading hours of Sunday and in the best tradition of British Rail, this article is late. Following on from Sunday Driver, heres part of the 1972 Tri-ang Hornby catalogue, showing the Minix cars as part of the range. Also, its an excuse to showcase the beautiful art of Terence Cuneo, which Maverick kindly identified in an earlier post - http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/scary-monsters-super-creeps.html - he also pointed out that Cuneos trademark was a small mouse included in the artwork. Tri-ang make this clear on the inside page of the catalogue, inviting readers to find the mouse in the painting 'Night Freight'. The answer is given in the catalogue, but try as I might, I can't see the mouse, even after looking at the answer!

Can anyone see it ? Ill post the answer later... meanwhile, here are the Minix cars on the low loader and also in situ on a layout. 

Also Andy B has pointed me in the direction of a website with the elusive Minix catalogue too!

SPACEX ART WEEK: MOLAB [AND AMERICAN MYSTERY]

Despite never having owned one as a kid or adult, the Tri-ang SpaceX MOLAB is one of my favourite SpaceX toys and I especially love the card art as pictured above. As discussed before, I believe it to have been inspired by the MOLAB cover of Rocket Stories from July 1953 by American artist Alex Schomberg seen below.

On a completely different note, I never thought that the US Golden Astronaut series of toys included a MOLAB until I read this recently on WORTH POINT from 2009:

GOLDEN ASTRONAUT - MOLAB SERIES NO. 507 DELUXE DIECAST CHASSIS

AUTHENTIC VEHICLES OF THE FUTURE

SCALED TO SPACE ENGINEERS' DRAWINGS

1970 MULTIPLE TOYMAKERS, N.Y. A DIVISION OF MINER INDUSTRIES, INC

MADE IN THE BRITISH CROWN COLONY OF HONG KONG

WOW!!!! APPOX. 40 YEARS OLD AND STILL IN IT'S UNOPENED PACK, IT'S ALL IN IT'S ORIGINAL CONDITION. PRETTY COOL CAR. THIS WOULD MAKE A GREAT ADDITION TO ANYONE'S VINTAGE COLLECTION.

Alas, there is no picture included. Was there really a Golden Astronaut MOLAB?

NEWSFLASH! Mike B has kindly sent me this amazing picture he saved from Ebay . Here we the American Golden Astronaut MOLAB and it's boxed! Wow! What a fantastic toy! Is it bigger than the SpaceX one I wonder and are there any more in the die-cast chassis series? Thanks Mike! Result!

Sunday Driver

 Here we go with todays tenuous space toy link! Its a concrete but slightly off-topic one, the maker of the Minix cars being Rovex. I happened to stumble on the 'boxed' Ford Anglia pictured above last week on ebay, at a 99p start and couldn't resist. Amazingly, I won at the ridiculously low price too. Apart from small toys being a passion of mine, this little toy was a direct route down memory lane for me too. As my dad had been a big train enthusiast, these little cars had often dotted about the layout. After a quick ferret around in the box of trains in the attic, I found them.

I don't recall them arriving boxed individually, or was I ever aware of the name, I always thought of them as 'Minic' cars, a brand I associated with Tri-ang trains from the catalogues.

 The neat little models have metal alloy wheels and the name and number clearly moulded underneath with spare details. As you can see from the box, there were free gifts available by collecting tokens from the packs. The gifts were not car related - two were glider kits and the third was a 'record breakers' booklet.

 Theres quite a range of the little vehicles and the saloon cars also appear on the back of the tri-ang car transporter wagon from the train sets. After another sort in the train box, I found what I vaguely recalled to be the car transporter, but it was a Playcraft version.

The cars seated on this wagon were all continental makes such as Citroen and far inferior in construction, having a basic body shell and no windows or chrome elements.

Im sure the Minix range must have had its own catalogue, as it doesnt appear in any of the Tri-ang main catalogues and the original Minic line of toys does. Has anyone seen a Minix leaflet ?

2001: A SWORD ADVERTISING ODYSSEY

"A PROMOTIONAL and advertising campaign to boost the SWORD range of space-age toys from Century 21 Toys Ltd. is being launched throughout the country during November.

The campaign will embrace trade, provincial Press and children's comic advertising, advertising on millions of bus tickets and competitions for both retailers and consumers."

The above quote comes from Toad's fabulous blog post on SWORD's November 1968 advertising campaign. You can read the full snippet here.

I was intrigued by the word provincial and thought I'd seen it elsewhere in the blog archive. It appears in the final line of this clipping supplied by Darth back in 2008, when we first discussed SWORD advertising campaigns. The clipping is undated but we know that 2001 A Space Odyssey, which it refers to in the past tense, premiered in London on 10th May 1968 [imdb - which cinema?]. Could the advertising campaign mentioned in the top article found by Toad be the same as that described here? The dates seen to fit with it all centred on 1968.

If you've looked back at our 2008 discussion refered to above you'll have seen another trade clipping about SWORD campaigns, also found by resident detective Toad. For convenience it's re-posted in full below with the relevant SWORD bits blown up below. 

This article, also about the 2001/ SWORD tie-in, is dated June 1968, after the London premiere of 2001 in May. Despite trying I can't find a list of UK cinema showings for 2001 except for those in Cinerama, which includes Birmingham 19th January 1969 [ref. in70mm.com].

So in conclusion, is it possible that all three clippings found by Toad and Darth  refer to one single SWORD advertising campaign, albeit in different parts, during the summer and winter of 1968, centred on the London release of 2001 and spinning out to the provinces from there into shops and onto buses?

One Small Step

After all the mystery surrounding Spacex, it suddenly occurred to me that I had neglected to look at possibly one of the best toys ever made, never mind just in the space toy genre, Major Matt Mason. We've looked at the figures, as examples of fine action figure design, but the characters were just a part of the story. What really set matt Mason apart from other astronaut toys, were the accessory sets.

Look at the price scribbled in biro on the back!

Aside from being realistically designed, all the sets were practical and functional. The Moon Suit had pneumatic arms and the launching pads all sported really powerful mechanisms. The Rocket Launch Pak has a small 'mouse trap' like mechanism which could be loaded with a cap for a loud bang on impact. The Satellite Launcher is especially good, powering the propellor driven satellites high into the air and also slicing into unfortunate fingers if you happened to misfire. One of my favourites was always the Reconojet, which came with a generous amount of black nylon cord, which reached easily from an upstairs bedroom window, down into the garden!  The only downside of this was it invariably became tangled inextricably around everything when it wasn't being used. These few carded examples are from a batch I found in an old newsagents in Liverpool, during the time I was out of work. I happened to be walking by one day with my girlfriend and spotted Sgt Storm sat in the window in his cattrac. When I went in, the whole back wall was hung with almost all the accessory packs, a few Callistos and Sgt Storms and all I had was a fiver...