BOX ART MYSTERY: MOON DOMES

Over the last year I have noticed a few toy boxes with a peculiar and recurring image, a white moon dome with red and chequered trims. I first noticed them on the backing card of the awesome TAKEUCHI Project Sword 'UFO' rubbers (or erasers in some quarters!), completely new to me and the blog and kindly donated to the blog cabinet by WOTAN (check out the MEV-2 grabber too!):

During the bloggiversary I noticed these strange lunar domes again on the box of the magnificent T in a Circle Moonbus-relative, the SPACE VEHICLE newly discovered by Ferryman:

To make comparison easier here they are in close-up:

Top - Takeuchi rubbers

Bottom - T in a Circle Space Vehicle

So, as is the way of all Swordheads I got to wondering about the origin of these moon domes. And I think I may just have it. Check out the fabulous painting 'MARS COLONY' by the iconic US NASA Space Artist Robert McCall (copyrighted image so please look on the McCall Studios website). You can see the lettering K-17 clearly as appears on the Takeuchi card and I would say that the T in a Circle box art is almost a straight lift of McCall's dome image complete with astronauts! It's undated but I'm assuming it's the '60's (anyone confirm the date?). So, like his Earth to Moon Shuttle/ Nuclear Ferry painting, Mr. McCall has influenced even more space toy box art. Any more domes anyone?

NOVA ON THE BLACK CORRIDOR FROM DARTH

Last year I found this great old German novel by Lothar Streblow in a Berlin bargain book box - Scramble Bug art to die for. I only mention this, as I have done before on't blog, because....

blog reader and space author Darth has found this cool Michael Moorcock book, BLACK CORRIDOR - check out that SPACEX/ GOLDEN ASTRONAUT NOVA on the cover! Hee hee, faaaantastic! But what have they stuck to it? The good news is you may be lucky and get one on Amazon! So now we have two novels with SWORD/SPACEX covers. But is this the ONLY one which actually uses a real toy?

I would like to thank Darth for sending this picture, which is completely new to me and the blog.

ALIENS AND THE MILKY WAY

PAUL VREEDE writes : "My brother and self went to a train show in Holland last Saturday, where he was much amused to spot a UFO in a cornfield on somebody's layout (see pic). What puzzled him was that there's a milk truck parked right next to it. He didn't ask the layout's owners, but I could explain it to him later: it's a reference to a famous 1980s Dutch advertising campaign for milk entitled "Milk - the white motor". This featured portraits of "atypical milk drinkers" and included a nice variation with a slogan I'd translate as "Gnirk - the white gnotor" still visible at GNERK

TOYS I'VED WALKED PAST: THUNDERCOP

In the early 1990's I re-started my 1970's Preston teenage tradition of going 'up town' on Saturdays, albeit my young family in tow rather than my hairy mates! Back in the early '90's, Wakefield was a treasure trove of discount stores and charity shops (as it is now really 'cept I've stopped going) and not many people seemed to looking for the stuff I was after - vintage toys and cheap sci fi stuff. I remember one particular discount toy shop above a Fish and Chip restaurant. You walked up stairs to be greeted by tons of boxed toys, mostly unlicensed, stacked neatly on shelves and in piles. I bought lots of stuff there but I can't remember what apart from a carded red-eyed werewolf from a monster line called Howlers. What I do remember are the toys I didn't buy and looking back I could kick myself as they have become disproportionately important in my overly-nostalgic world! One toy was a rubbery monster in a large box. I think there were several types. They looked great or at least that's what I think now! Another one, which I remember clearly being on the floor in a neat stack was the unlicensed Thunderbird 2 knockoff THUNDERCOP. There was something aesthetically attractive about the translucent cockpit window and the gold rotation base-plate. There were at least 50 of them and I didn't buy one, not a sausage! Much later I realised that it's see-through cockpit had been seen before on the much older TB2 clone, the 1968 RAY-GUIDED X-2 SPACE SHIP as featured in Dennis Nicholson's Gerry Anderson Memorabilia Guide ( anyone got a pic of the X-2 or its sister ship, the X-3?). Anyone got a Thundercop?

Unit Seventy Four

I've since found a battered example of a Thundercop at a boot sale but it didn't make me feel any better! Has anyone else walked past toys you now wished you'd bought?

PS. Keen-eyed reader Paul Vreede spotted this black version of TCOP on Ebay November 2009 - above.

REGENT TOYS IN COLOUR

Just messing about watching X-Men 3!

Anyone ever go to Regent Toys in London?

UFO Again...

1965-Santa Ana, California. August 3. Taken by highway traffic engineer Rex Heflin, while driving near the Santa Ana freeway. Heflin did not report his sighting, but the photographs were published by the Santa Ana Register on 09-20-65. This turned into a very controversial case with photos confiscated, and disagreements between different Ufologists about the photograph's authenticity. One of the most famous UFO photos ever taken, and more than not accepted as genuine.

I first saw this cool photo in the first Countdown annual and even then I thought it could be real. Just surfing for pics on Google and found this interesting toy patent issued some three years later... now i wonder...

MIDORI BABY BEETLE FROM SEAN

"This is the final baby I've seen - the Beetle. Interesting that they all have Japanese military markings - I suppose Godzilla is a persistent threat. By the way, haven't seen any Hong Kong versions of this one. Sean"

Beautiful! No, I've not seen a Hong Kong toy version. There's a bigger SPIN Z version. I suppose the UK version of Godzilla was GORGO. Anyone remember that film? I imagine we blasted it with lots of Cheiftain tank shells and police bobbies' truncheons to finish him off!

TOY SHOP MEMORIES BY YORKIE

This great comment was posted earlier this week. Like Barry's original bloglet this struck a chord so I've posted it in the main blog here. Woodsy.

"What a great article (Nostalgia Aint What it Used To Be by Barry Ford. Ed.) Sigh, the shops in York that no longer exist. Memory Lane card and toy shop. Go up the rickety old narrow staircase to the toy and model section. Thousands of Airfix kits old and new stacked high (well high to an 8 year old).

Woolworths, discovering the awesome Revell Jacques Cousteau's calypso ship and that Christmas battery powered ski slope with lift that I watched in awe for ages in the window as the little figues were pulled up then slid down.

Christmas at Browns department store (still there but no toy section for years), being frightened to death of the Santa, and Mum getting me the Dinky Ed Straker's car from there afterwards.

Precious was York's proper toy shop with Matchbox, Dinky and Corgi's on the shelf, many of the boxes opened for you to touch. Had absolutely everything, packed to the gills. You had to squeeze by other customers all the time, and that's as a kid. How the parents got down the aisles as well...

Moved school and had to go to a new dentist and discovering Monk Bar Model shop with Japanese Hasegawa and Fujimi kits which were bigger and a bit more expensive than Airfix. Never knew the shop or these manufacturers existed. A proper model shop in York, amazing to an 11 year old. Getting a 1/72nd scale Hasegawa Grant tank as a reward for having a tooth filled. (The shop is still there, mostly diecasts and railways now).

The local newsagents that had racks of bagged Airfix kits on those revolving stands. Remember how the instruction used to tell you what each part was? i.e. glue pitot tube A to forward fuselage B. Bought a new cheap kit or a Matchbox car for 10p (2 shillings) virtually every week. Oh and caps for my cowboy and secret agent toy guns. Do caps even exist today?

Discovering the Aurora Star Trek USS Enterprise and Klingon ship in the village hardware store(!). In those days they sold toys and models everywhere. Also discovered a few Frog kits there.

The annual trip to Leeds on the bus and finding Beatties model and toy shop, big shop in a big city. Always getting lost with Mum trying to find the bus station to go home. Beatties has long since gone.

Holidays - Finding the Project Sword Re-entry Task Force 2 and a Captain Scarlet dart gun at a newsagents just outside the caravan park at Sewerby near Bridlington. Lost most of the darts in the caravan park. Searching seaside shops to no avail throughout the seventies and mid eighties to try to replace the Gerry Anderson toys I stupidly threw away. In the sixties and seventies in Blackpool there was a great toy and model shop on the front on the corner of the Tower building. Discovered Aurora kits there. Still remember getting the Aurora Cutlass jet there, building it in the B&B and deciding that it looked far more futuristic with the wings glued on upside down. I drop into Blackpool about once a year now for an half day too (yes Thunderbooks too ) on my way to Lytham St Annes and noticed that it's just a cafe now.

In those days you didn't know when anything was coming out in the shops, only when you spotted it in the shop or saw that one of your mates had one. The number of times I couldn't afford a toy or kit and it had gone when I went back the next week with enough pocket money. - Presto supermarket, Aurora 2001 Orion, I'll always miss you, though I never had you.

Thanks for the memories. Great times. All the best, Yorkie."