Hi Woodsy,
Further to your blog post about the Apollo Exploration Set and the Apollo Moon Exploring Series, I note that I have an Apollo Exploration Set somewhere but it's caught in the old time/space warp (miscellaneous shed or cupboard!) so it's not available for a photo. However I would guess that Mike B's set has a lot more in it than mine - he seems to have at least 2 of everything - just the thing to conquer a parallel universe!!
What I have been able to track down is my collection of Apollo Moon Exploring Series - pics are attached.
A few interesting things to note about these:
- the front of the blister packs suggest that there are "12 sets" to collect. Mike B's pic shows 5 sets and as far as I can tell my pics show another 6 different sets so there must be another undiscovered set out there somewhere;
- the front of the blister packs also allege that "they really work" - presumably this refers to the models, although as far as I can tell they really don't work! They're very cute but all they do is sit there and don't actually fly to the Moon!!! I doubt that in the 21st century the advertising laws would allow such an optimistic claim (one can almost hear the year 2012 voice-over disclaimer: "Please note: Toys do not actually travel in space.");
- as may have been noted before on this blog, a lot of the little "extra" toys in these sets are miniature copies of Major Matt Mason toys including the following: Space Crawler, Reconojet, Rocker Launcher, Satellite Launcher, Cat Trac, Space Sled and even approximations of the Firebolt Space Cannon and Astro Trac. I'm not sure if Mattel went after Imperial Toys for nicking their designs - maybe Mattel were fooled by the cunningly-placed wheels on these little toys (but they didn't fool me!!);
- there are some variations in the same sets - for example, the 2 sets in my pics containing the red "mission control panel" (on green backing cards) have different Major Matt Mason knock-offs accompanying them. Similarly, the the 2 sets containing the white rocket ship with the red tail (on yellow backing cards) have the Major Matt Mason knock-offs accompanying them but the knock-offs are in different colours;
- the accompanying astronauts are, of course, our little Golden Astronaut/SpaceX mates.
Overall these are lovely little models but they are cruder and less well-detailed than the Golden Astronaut/SpaceX models. Nevertheless, they're yet another set of excellent late 60s - early 70s beauties!!
Cheers
Tony P