BERWICK THUNDERBIRDS UNIFORM

With permission from the seller, I have posted these fabulous pictures of the BERWICK THUNDERBIRDS UNIFORM 1965, which recently appeared on Ebay. It really is amazing. I particularly like the box and the accessories. I'm pretty sure I didn't own one when I was 5 but I may have done - my memory is like an old piece of Gouda. Did anyone have the pleasure of donning this uniform back in the Sixties? Are there anymore TB uniforms?

PS. there is more info on this uniform at Steve's excellent Vintage Thunderbirds Toys (check out his great ID competition too - at least one blog reader has already won something!)

PROJECT SEWED: THE TARHEEL SEWING MACHINE

TARHEEL's range of toys never ceases to amaze me. From PROJECT SWORD, to helicopters, racing cars, robots and then to a kids' Sewing Machine (pictured above) recently sold on Ebay. The 'T' logo looks like the 'T with 2 kids' we've seen before. Unusually it says 'Made in Japan', which is more akin to the JOHNNY TARHEEL brand, although the connection between TARHEEL of Tarboro and that of Japan is by no means clear. Even for a Tarheelhead like me my display shelf can survuve without their Sewing Machine!

CALLING INTERNATIONAL RESCUE: HELP NEEDED WITH IMAI TV CLIPS

I've been browsing through the pages of the great German site, THUNDERBIRDS AND FRIENDS and come across the Videoclips section. If you click on the THUNDERBIRDS tag you'll see loads of old clips of Imai toys including the 1960's Zero X! Now it might be my computer but I just can't get any to work! Can anyone more technically adept please have a go and send me links to the Imai toys that work. Calling International Rescue! Thank you.

PS. I also can't find any way of contacting the site administrator. Anyone else see how it's done?

Six of One

Now before anyone starts getting excited at the prospect of a Star Trek Next Gen link, this is in response to Woodmeisters earlier query as to what the box of the Six in One Space Set looked like!

I won the set on ebay US some time ago and the box was dilapidated then. Unfortunately, the set wasn't complete, but did carry 99% of the spacex related toys. As you can see from the box, Mortoys decided to pillage several toy lines for ideas and we have a Captain Scarlet MSV in there too as well as a close copy of a SWORD Moonbus. These two elements were missing from my set as well as one of the little wings from the Nuclear Freighter tail.

The basic idea is very similar to a Child Guidance Toy fom the sixties which had a motorised base and lots of clip on parts to make a bulldozer, plane, police car, cement mixer et al. Judging by the box, i'd tentatively place it as an early seventies toy, which would mean most of the patents for the toys they 'borrowed' would probably have expired or gone out of production, leaving the company carte blanche to plagiarise them.

PROJECT WOOD: WOODEN MODELS OF SWORD AND SPACEX LOOKALIKES

An obvious SWORD 'splinter' group are these wooden models available on Ebay: Zero X, Dyna Soar, Saturn 5, Stiletto (simialr to SPACEX Hawk), Blackbird (similar to SPACEX Reconnaisance 2) and the awesome Space Tug, which appears, sort of, in the fabled Moonbase Playset. But my absolute favourite and contender for space on the Christmas list is the Lifting Body - below - an absolute deadrinder for the SWORD Space Glider. Definately stiff competition for the plastic toys! Wooden it be nice if there were more!

Pictures on Ebay December 2009-

Items available at the time.

MOTORISED INTERCHANGEABLE SPACEX: THEY'LL DRIVE YOU UP THE WALL

Continuing my revisiting of favourite postings so far here's another look at part of WOTAN's post from 15th Oct 2008 about his amazing motorised Spacex set:

"Closer to the space theme, I found a set of interchangeable vehicles on ebay with a motorised base shaped like a lego brick and several components that clip on to build different vehicles. These included, besides a dayglo red Cricket, a Nuclear Freighter and Tractor T5 again from Spacex, as well as a space tank and something similar to the Captain Scarlet MSV. The MSV parts and one or two bits, including the blue fins for the NF2 were missing, but luckily all the major spacex parts were there!'"

2nd time round its another big WOW! from me! Just who made these and what was the packing like? Woodsy

FUTURISTIC SPACE VEHICLES: SPACEX CLONES RE-VISITED

I liked this post and Astronit's FUTURISTIC SPACE VEHICLES so much last October 5th I've re-posted it here again:

"Following on from Rob's picture the other day Blog follower and space toys superfan ASTRONIT has

supplied me with these fabulous photos of his amazing FUTURISTIC VEHICLES set. I know other blog readers have some of these vehicles so I'm sure that ASTRONIT's collection will be a hit. Have any other readers got any different ones?"

I've seen that font before but where? Woodsy

SPACE SET - INTERSPACE VEHICLES: SPACEXY THUNDERBIRDS MIX

Just won this on Ebay. Just found it intriguing, like a SPACEX/ GOLDEN ASTRONAUT/ THUNDERBIRDS pick 'n' mix knockoff. More pics to follow once I recieve the item. Anybody know more about this set?