Keep Watching the Skies

 Back in the summer of '72, while on holiday in Devon, I picked up a book, Investigating UFO's. at 25p it wasn't expensive, but it turned out to be a real influence on me. It contained several amazing photos of what appeared to be indisputable flying disks as well as descriptions of alien encounters. I tend to be quite cynical and skeptical at best, but do have an open mind and a willingness to accept new ideas, so I found it all very interesting indeed. Following on from the book, I got the 1972 Countdown annual for xmas that year and this included a thought provoking four page article shown here:

Ufo

Between the two books and regular articles in Countdown weekly about UFOs, I became quite interested in the field, although to this day I cant honestly say i've ever seen a genuine UFO. Some of the photographs in the Countdown article and in the Target book such as the Santa Ana sighting and the photo taken from a plane window in 1963 over Venezuela appear to be inexplicable and very real.

 

A lot of such photos such as George Adamskis famous sightings are clearly hoaxed, but others are more difficult to explain. Such as William Rhodes photos of a craft with a white circle in the centre or the amazing shot of a saucer over South Africa in 1956.

More recently, UFO sightings have centred around the 'black triangle' and speculation that sightings in the US may be actually a secret Area 51 skunkworks aircraft known as the TR-3B, an antigravity vehicle supposedly developed with recovered alien technology!

Black triangles are spotted all over the world, hovering and flying silently overhead. In 2002 an oil rig worker took this shot of what is clearly a delta winged vehicle out over Glasgow.

So, has anyone else seen a real UFO or more importantly - have you got a photo ?.......

RAY GUIDED X-2 SPACE SHIP FROM ARTO

I do love this TB2 clone, the wonderfully named RAY GUIDED X-2 SPACE SHIP. It's operated by use of a simple torch beam. And we thought the Internet was clever! I think the transparent green fuselage is particularly attractive and reminds me a little of  later TB2 doppelganger, THUNDERCOP. This particular X-2 was acquired from Italy and is shown courtesy of blog friend Arto.

As for the little blue torch, it's a classic Sixties design. I'm sure I had a torch like that. It kinda sort of reminds me of the small kaleidoscope made by SWORD copyist HOVER as pictured below:

Mo' Molab

This post has been a long time coming and is probably not really ready to roll even now. The problem has been that the bulk of the information I will present was shared with me by ubercollector and premium expert Mike Speth aka Astronit, who I have not been able to contact for some time, largely due to his work schedule and other pressing issues he was faced with. So if your're reading this Mike, please feel free to correct me. Shortly after I started blogging, I got in touch with Mike with various queries about premiums and he was a mine of information. One of the biggest thorns in my side had always been the Kelloggs Space Age premiums and their background, and Mike kindly illuminated their story for me in a series of emails accompanied by some amazing pictures. Some of the pictures copyright and credit belong to third parties and this is where my reticence to post them lay.

I had first come across the Molab as one of six small kits made available in Sugar Smacks around July, 1969. I was always a fan of moon buggies etc and was overjoyed when I got the Molab in the first box of cereal I opened. Unfortunately, I wouldn't eat the sugary rubbish itself and I only ever got another two chances, one of which revealed the atlas rocket and one final one got me the transporter. At the time I didn't know that the set contained more models than the UK release as this japanese box art shows.

As I am focussing on the Molab at this point, i'll disregard the other kits for now and revisit them later. At some point during the succeeding years, I came across an illustration of a 'molab' on a book cover, bright red and unmistakably the same vehicle. This version painted by Alex Schomburg appears on a book dated 1953 and would appear to be the earliest appearance of the vehicle. The Spacex version, which I came across probably about 1972/73, follows this design closely.

However, when I asked Mike about the original and background of the Molab he told me - 


"The Space Age set came out in 1970 and all the mold pieces were designed by Stan Barton.  The actual craft designs for the vehicles were done by NASA.  The molds are still in use and you can get them from Mexico but the plastic is not as good as original R&L. Stan’s original models were made of wood and photographed in B&W to sell the concept to Kellogg’s.  Also is a scan of the page from Craig’s first book where all the pictures were his line drawing."

Stan apparently referred to the Molab as a 'space shuttle' and was quoted as having 'dreamed it up', but the general outline clearly reflects Schomburgs design of some 20 years previously. The other designs are easily recognisable as NASA concepts, apart from perhaps the Rocket Transporter, which could easily feature in Thunderbirds. 

 To blow my mind even further though, Mike pointed out that the R & L kits appeared again in another form, a set of all the collected models called Diko-Rama.

 This spanish set featured all the kits together with a card backdrop and was sold at retail, rather than being offered as a premium. The set included 12 individual kits, with duplicates of some of the models and the buyer was encouraged to paint each one after making it up.

Personally, I prefer the plain coloured plastic myself and although I did actually paint my original green Molab and add an american flag decal, it was only because it had been battered and repaired so many times over the years.. I eventually managed to replace it and find the missing models from my collection in ebay Australia.

As a background to cereal collecting and a good source of info on the range of R & L premiums, Mike recommended Craig Halls book BREAKFAST BARONS CEREAL CRITTERS AND THE ROSENHAIN AND LIPMANN LEGACY - from which several of these photos are taken.


And finally, part of the reason that this post has appeared now was that after Andy sent me his photo of his premium collection, I was contacted with a request to use the pic of my Molab in a blog post on the actual Space Race. Also I had been mulling over something I might use as a subject for a painting I wanted to do to experiment with oils, the resultant illustration sits at the head of this already long article...

Continuing Comansi

Following on from Adriaans  TBirds Comansi set, I just thought i'd flag up this  Coman Boys Space Commando set. The connection being an incongruous Thunderbird 1 popped into the set for no apparent reason apart from it being a 'rocket'.

 

The small figures are very like Playmobil, bu just about two inches high. The set came with a collection of plastic girders to support a cardboard backdrop, which wasn't included in my set. Tbird 1 appears to have lost part of its engine too, although it fits neatly in its foam box. I especially like the cool molab with MEV-like wheels, which dates the toy to the early seventies at least. The little trike is very reminiscent of the Honda trikes that pursued Bonds Moonbuggy in 'Diamonds are Forever'.

Comansi Thunderbirds: Guardianes Del Espacio

Hi Paul, was looking at your article on Thunderbirds Comansi items from Spain. I've recently bought the 1965 set in great condition, so I thought maybe it was a good idea to send you some pictures of this very rare set. Maybe you will be able to use them on Moonbase Central ? FAB site by the way............! With kind regards,

Adriaan van Stenis,

Thunderbirds collector, The Netherlands

Beautiful Comansi set Adriaan! I particularly love the silver FAB 1. Thanks ever so much for sharing! Paul

Freaster

I have very fond memories of Easter as a child growing up in Lancashire, England. Mass, hot cross buns, Disneytime and of course Easter Eggs. The two I remember the most were both bought from our local Post Office, which always had a marvellous display of choccy eggs. One was what I believe to have been a plastic Thames truck with a foil covered chocolate egg nestling oin the back. I loved this egg-toy and when I asked Mum the Truck's name she replied quickly 'For easter'. As a result I have always called Thames trucks 'Freasters'! The second egg-toy I loved was a clock. The clock was in fact an octagonal box with the 'numbers' being small foil covered choccy eggs. Complete with plastic clock hands it was an absolute joy. I haven't any photo's of these and can't find anything similar on the Net so I've attempted to sketch them below. Anyone else have any favourite Easter eggs or toys?

Happy Easter Readers

Have an Eggstra special Easter everyone!

Have a great holiday,

From Woodsy and Wotan.

Easter T

This year I've added substantially to my T Circle [Tai Hing] toy collection, having been hooked since I first discovered their SWORD originals of the Moon Prospector and the Moon Bus back in the 1990's. One of my additions was the cool Dolphin Cruiser, albeit missing a plastic windscreen. I then saw the above black painted specimen on Ebay Germany and, needing the windscreen, snapped it up! The old black beauty then went to Ferryman's magic workshop, where he performed absolute wonders and returned the boat to it's glorious blue and white livery as you can see below. The box end was also stripped of old sellotape.

I've blogged about my T Space Shuttle this year already but here's a couple of shots of a better Shuttle box courtesy of  reader and ebayer Raed Ammari of Jordan. 

Raed had a surprise too. He explains: "...but the big surprise for me was the “T” chopper I found with my battery cars box. Also dead mint and new!". You can see Raed's Military Copter above and below complete with the rare Tai Hing logo, the orginal and full name for the T in a Circle brand [model number 514].

Another T helicopter is this basic blue bell below, which made it's way to Moonbase in March courtesy of Joe from Main Street Toys in Minnesota.

And last but not least in this T update is this cool T Boat Game, part of a range of three T games [Boat, Racing Car, Shuttle] and currently on offer by the superb ebay toy dealer Monti Firu of Argentina, who supplied me with the Shuttle Game earlier this year.