Wotans Used Motors

 

Gentlemen (and lady) start your engines! after yesterdays foray into the world of toy cars, here are more delicacies from the Wotan Archive. Above is the Mercedes Benz 220 se, the starting point for my collecting wich would continue for the next 47 years and beyond. Not my first toy, that distinction belongs to a small yellow vinyl rabbit, but the point at which i was introduced to collecting a regular series of toys from a larger range. Following on from this comes a variety of my favourite early toys, especially tankers, as my childhood ambition after getting into space was to be a tanker driver!

RAF Refuelling Tender

Husky Milk and custom Esso Tankers

Budgie Mini Tankers

MB Freeman Intercity Commuter and Corgi Junior Wigwam Van Camper

Corgi Junior Rough Terrain Truck

MB Skip and Atlas trucks

MB Blaze Buster

MB Toe Joe and Stretcha Fetcha

MB Articulated Truck and Freeway Gas Tanker

Corgi Junior Pinafarina Modulo and Husky Man From Uncle Car

Poster Boys

The famous Athena Sod Off poster!

Right, I'll sod off then!

Lab-O-Rama

Woodsy,

Another set of pics I found on the web were these images which I hope will be of very great interest to you. I...was surprised to find they had packaged the cereal space toys in this series. And what wouldn't you give to have the 'Coleccion Diko-Rama' set ? I do wonder how many are out there ?

S.I.G.!

Spectrum Steve

What a fabulous set! Like a Christmas Selection Box! Two Molabs as well! Fabulous Steve. If you want to find out more about this set and the other Molab incarnations check out Wotan's wonderful Mo Molabs post from earlier this Spring.

Toys for the Boys

 Straight from Wotans old toybox, here are some rough unprocessed shots for Ed. Two Matchbox Tate & Lyle Sugar Tankers above. Below, Husky Sand and Coal Trucks,

 My old Crash Tender (sans suspension!) cant tell what colour the cannon is, its been to too many bad landings now, the colour has faded. Accompanied by a Husky Police Car, think my Pa must have overlooked the Matchbox one that year..

 The wonderful Sbow Trac, sans tracks.

 That old stalwart, the Stalwart. Still got the uellow clip on cover somewhere, but couldnt put my hand on it in a rush. Next to it is a modern Majorette Amphibie.

 And finally, the wonderful Autotanker fleet complete with my dads 45 year old paint job.

PS - Keep meaning to mention, I had a plastic Stawart Tanker as a kid, made by Clifford, it was a garish red body, yellow tank and racing green wheels. Think it had 'Petrol' written on the side and was friction driven and about 6 inches long. Molding was good, even down to the little hatches on the cab roof. Anyone ever seen one ?

Tender Moments in a Matchbox

The appearance of the Matchbox Crash Tender in various guises prompted another search in the Wotan archive to reveal the 1964 Matchbox cattalogue. Two years after I was born, my dad had started buying me Matchbox cars and this continued for many years as he dutifully collected every one of the small models, apart from the army ones! He also religiously collected the catalogues too and I inherited the collection of booklets after he passed away.  Apart from a battered 1958 edition, the collection begins here and its at this point that the Crash Tender appears as a new model. Also in the same year is the Police Car No.55, which im sure found its way onto the Glenn Field tarmac at some point too.

The amazing BP Autotanker appears too with a lovely articulated low loader which never made it into my collection. My dad acquired a second Autotanker, probably from a jumble sale and painted it red and yellow for me. I can see where I got the 'customisation' bug from now!

 The other Supermarionation staple is the Inter State Double Freighter, frequenty seen hi-tailing it off screen before a memorable plane crash.

 Finally, a leap forward three years and a page from the 1967 catalogue showing the Crash tender still in place, this time with the gold foam cannon as pointed out by Mike. But this page is here mainly because of the large illustration of the Alvis Stalwart, a wonderful space age addition to the range, which is still a firm favourite with me today.

Blu Tac Heroes

The paraphernalia of youth is a broad church of stuff and things: clothes, toys, music, books, comics, mags and posters to name but a few. Continuing the poster thread from earlier in the week I thought I'd take a look at different decades. First up and probably the most important for my brothers' generation were the black and white posters of the late Sixties as featured above, which appeared in the back pages of Monster comics like Creepy, Eerie and Famous Monsters.

They were marketed by Captain Company, a sort of mail order Athena before Athena had been invented and included icons like Raquel Welch, Che Guevara, Steve McQueen, Brigitte Bardot, Barnabas Collins [of Dark Shadows fame], the fabulous Keep On Truckin' [and the similar Sod Off, not pictured] and last but not least, the huge Frankenstein Monster, which I had over my bed for years as a kid! How I miss ol' lanky features!

Then came Athena iteself! Timed perfectly with my own teenage years, these shops were a mecca for poster lovers and wall adorners everywhere. The Moonbase Jr. bedroom was festooned with all my favourite 'heros' like Tolkein's Rhovanian Mirkwood [above top], Jim Cauty's mesmerising Gandalf, which I had as a wooden block poster [above middle] and Rodney Matthew's fantastic Warriors from the Sky [above bottom]. I still have these rolled up somewhere in our tardistic loft!

Toad's favourite Athena poster was another wooden block, the beautifully simple "Mandolin" by Ha Van Vuong of Vietnam as seen above.

My daughter's generation, the Eighties kids, were treated to a new range of Athena poster boys and girls. Two I remember well gracing her wall were these two pictured: the cheeky tennis girl and the young guy holding the baby. I have a feeling these are rolled up in the attic too! Googling them I was fascinated to see the three beautiful young things all growed up [tennis girl, baby boy]. Next they'll be telling me that the the TV Test Card girl is a Grandma!

So what do modern Yoofs pin up nowadays?

JR Mewing

Yes, you read it correctly, the Feasting Pussy! This spectacularly named friction-drive plastic toy was made by JR [a la 21] in the early 1960's. It is one of dozens of novelty plastic toys that JR made. Many found there way to the US including ol' Whiskers himself here. The company logo can be seen on the toy's base, the monogrammed diamond. Anyone got one?

JR21 To Be Or Not Be Two: Third Bloggiversary X- Series by Ferryman

Hard to believe that the blog is three years old now. I was looking back at the posts for the first bloggiversary back in 2009 and remembered just what a revelation Ferryman's special article for the occassion was: JR21 To Be or Not To Be concerning the likely connection between JR21 and the fabulous X series of plastic space toys made in Hong Kong.

Well as it is exactly two years ago to the day I have pleasure in being able to bring you an update of the original grouping. Ferryman has kindly sent in a new and bigger family portrait. So without further ado, here's Ferryman:

Hi Woodster,
My camera isn't great a group shots but I've attached the best of a  bad bunch. They countdown from X- 90 on the left to X- 30 on the right.
Ferryman

Right to Left:

X-30 Space Explorer No. 303

X-40 Space Rocket  No. 232

X-50 Space Racer: No. 233

X-60 Space Rocket on Launching Truck: No. 234 [JR21 branded box]

X-70 Astronaut No. 235

X-80 Space Capsule No. 240

X-90 Flying Saucer Car No. 241