Tell Tales

Whats your favourite sci-fi novel ? I love a good read and sci-fi is my weapon of choice. I like a story that is well researched and thought provoking as well as being a gripping and enthralling tale. My favourite author is William Gibson, followed closely by Gene Wolfe and Alan Dean Foster. Straying into the realm of fantasy, I read Clive Barker but I much prefer the technical minutiae of hard sci-fi.

My top tales would include: 'Idoru' by William Gibson, 'Book of the New Sun' by Gene Wolfe, 'Sentenced to Prism' by Alan Dean Foster and the glorious 'Imajica' and 'Abarat' books by Clive Barker - especially the latter as they are full of beautiful painted illustrations to feed the eye.

Whats yours ?....

BOOK OF SPACE ADVENTURES 3

One for the Toad! One of twenty or so frogmeisters residing in our wild pond. Just sat next to it watching this little fella watching me! Think he's a Tull fan as I'm listening to STAND UP!

Below are some pages from THE BOOK OF SPACE ADVENTURES 3  courtesy of today's boot sale. It's undated but looks early 1960's. There are no colour pictures except for ACE JORDON comic strips done in a rough crayony style. There's the ITHACUS we've seen before via WOTAN and a cool SST painting signed by one R.McQuarrie (a la Ralph) later of Star Wars fame. There's at least 3 SPACEX designs in these snaps. Answers on an e-card please [well, a comment will do]!

book published by ATLAS, Bride Lane, London

Anyone got book 1 and 2?

LOOK INTO THE SUN BY JETHRO TULL

From the classic 70's Tull album STAND UP. Enjoy!

THE CAR BOOT SUMMER HAS BEGUN

Above are the spoils of my latests forays into Charity shops, Nostell Priory Car boot Sale and Huddersfield Second Hand Market: popeye jigsaws, matchbox cars, a robot, a truck, Book of Space, games and more. There was more I could get like a box full of 1980's He-Man figures but at 50p a figure it was too dear even with discount. A War of the Daleks game by Denys Fisher caught my eye but £15 was too steep for my embattled wallet. Will I regret that? A particularly interesting item is the 1962 John Glen Astronaut book - started reading it already! My favourite find though is the completely mint card paddling pool pump [at the rear - still with the Woollies price tag on of 20p!], which above all else reminds me of long hot summers past in the Sixties sploshing about in inflated pools and runnung through the lawn sprinkler, a plastic perforated 'doughnut' attached to the end of the hose! Bliss! A good idea for today as it's scorching hot!

A LOAD OF 'TAT'!

Just missed out on this interesting lot of HK plastic on t'Ebay this week. I was prinicipally interested in the Ice Cream Van and the Blue Van to the left. This is the lot description [just names]:

1.Minix No 5 Austin a60
2.Wiking ford Capri

3.DKW Junior Yellow and a red car--2 items
4.Small yelow car -unmarked

5.Mercedes Van-modern

6.Colourful Friction Bike -handebars broken No402 on the side

7.Blue van is modern

8.Green and Blue motorbikes -Hong Kong

9.A large green Ice Cream Van - Has TAT Hong Kong Made for Telsalda [Vendor -arm missing]

THE MF-105: SON OF THE SHANGHIA MOONSHIP?

You'll remember the tinplate MOONSHIP made in China shown above with it's box. Below you can see it's front landing gear, basically a tin wheel.

Now here's an MF-105 tinplate jet plane, which looks similar: the cigar shape, the red nose-cone and the landing gear [missing the wheel - bottom picture]. Do you agree it's related to the Moonship?

The above MF-105 is pictured and for sale at Gasoline Alley Antiques

And below, thanks to Paul V's suggestion, for comparison is a tinplate F-104A Star Fighter I found online. Of unknown Japanese manufacture. The landing gear do look similar to the above two toys.

 

 

Liveauctioneers.

ANIGRAND DYNA SOAR

There's an ANIGRAND DYNA-SOAR KIT for sale on Ebay USA here. I've never had one but I bet it's a good substitute for the Century 21 toy. Anyone got the ANIGRAND or any other Dyna-Soar kits?

JR21 UPDATE: COMICARS, THE X-90 AND THE X-60 BUMPERS

 

As mentioned already this cute COMICARS car joined the Moonbase fleet last month. I spotted it on Ebay USA and immediately recognised the washed-out colouring and the JR diamond monogram of J. Rosenthal Toys (later to be JR21). You can also see the HS combination we've come across before on the blog [but what does it stand for?]. This little piggy is model no.313, putting paid to my theory that my plastic VW Pick-Up [also 313] is JR21. You can see that two more COMICARS have model numbers 314 and 315. There is also a REGD. APPROVED no. 914612. The rear artwork showing a turning-head motion seems OTT for such a meagre feature! Still I do love this watercolouresque artwork, which we have seen before on the JR21 X- series of plastic space toys by J.Rosenthal.

This brings me neatly to the next Rosenthal update: a few more pics of the fabulous and only-recently seen X-90 FLYING SAUCER CAR, model no. 241, sold to a lucky buyer on Ebay last month. Although far more sophisticated you can see on the box side a similar palette of colour washes to that of the Comicars above.

Another point of reference is what I will now refer to as the X-bumper, which you can see on the noses of both the X-90 above and X-60 below [the bumper is an ejecting button]. Has anybody come across any more X-bumpers?