ALIEN ATTACK!

Playsets have always been a staple of toy marketing. All your favourites bundled together in a cool box. Swordies like me dream of the re-emergence of the Project SWORD Moonbase playset. In the meantime there are lots of fine space sets to keep us amused. Of particular interest to SpaceXers is this ALIEN ATTACK playset by those Seventies toymeisters HG TOYS, who also gave us the legendary Godzilla Playset and Alien Target Sets.

ALIEN ATTACK is a hotch-potch of Buck Rogers and other stuff packaged up to doubtless cash-in on the success of Star Wars. The SpaceX interest comes in the form of the silver/grey spaceship centre-right in the top picture, which is a simple clone of Tri-ang's SpaceX Pleasure Cruiser pictured on its card below. Looking at the HG box art I see that there's also a gold coloured cruiser too. It shows two cruisers. Were there two of them in a set? I keep looking out on feebay for a loose one as the shipping for a whole set is astronomical from the States to the UK.

The delta design is a popular one for space toys and here's another cruiser-like miniature from Japan. Probably a Glico or Morinaga candy premium.

Pictures: Ebay and Noppin

Force Field

I'm getting ready for a having car boot stall on Wednesday at the local sale in a field. I can't decide whether to take some Manta Force toys to sell like this Fortress in a French box. What do you think?

Cheap Space

Back in the 1990's I used to plunder discount shops for space toys. One set was a carded playset containing small cute white spacemen like 'little people', a spaceship and parts of a space city I think. Long gone I just can't recall the name of the set or find an image. I saw this boxed set on Ebay this week and for a second thought Star Commanders II may have been it but the astronauts aren't cute enough I don't think! Anyone else got any cheap carded space sets from the 1990's?

MINIATURE SWORD SCOUT 1 NEW TO THE BLOG

I've been Noppin again and bagged yet another miniature SWORD toy, this time the beautiful blue Scout 1 pictured above. Sporting the tell-tale solid half-wheels on its base it's a fab new addition to this miniature SWORD fleet, which now stands at 9 known examples [7 different vehicles and 2 colour variations see here and here ]. I still don't know the maker - Glico perhaps? - but I feel sure that the entire SWORD fleet was reproduced in miniature for this range. It's just a matter of time. Oh, and patience!

The Cakes of Earth

Well it's Sunday morning here on Moonbase and I've managed to sleep till 9am! Mrs. Moonbase says I'm like a teenager and the new spot on my chin is evidence that she may just be right! I usually start the day sneezing my head off in the dusty pollen-laden base atmoshpere but yesterday a Booster Rocket full of supplies arrived including some antihistemine tablets, which I've started taking for the first time. They appear to have reduced the amount of sneezing but not the intensity which remains at G-Force levels. It's early days so I'll continue to sneeze like an Olympian! I wonder if hay-fever is common amongst blog readers?

Yesterday we left Moonbase for a short trip to Earth and wandered round the town of Doncaster, which has one of the biggest markets in England. Stocking up on luxuries for any terra-formers like us, we bought strawberries, pea pods and Alien on DVD.

Being in such a large market I noticed several cake decorating stalls and thought I would conduct a small experiment: would they have any space cake toppers like spaceships or spacemen? Might they even stock some old golden astronauts! Alas, I didn't find any of those but I did see some cool small spacecraft amongst the brides, grooms and footballers. On returning to base I checked the Culpitt's website, as to whether they still actually sell the golden astronauts direct online. The answer is no. I wonder if any cake decorators still do? Wiltons in the USA? Yours in your neck of the woods? Online LulusCupcakeBoutique are still flying the flag and selling what I wanted to find in Doncaster. Like other Swordies and SpaceXers I purchased some, all made in China, from Lulu last year.

One final thought about cakes. Did Culpitt's/ Wiltons/ Others ever sell golden astronauts in boxes?

Space Bird 3: Variation 4

Over the Summer I was lucky enough to pick up this Space Bird 3 variation. Space Bird by YT of Japan is a clone of Project SWORD's Probe Force 3 and as far I know this brings the total number of Space Bird variants to four. The other three are featured below. The main two colour types are grey or white. All the other variations are differences in the colour of the cockpit and engine windows and the rear engines themselves. This new combination, pictured above, is green cockpit, red engine woindow and yellow rear engines. There could well be many more colour combinations as yet undiscovered.

There may also be box differences between the grey and white types, but I can't be certain as I don't own a white one. Looking at the pictures here they do apear to have different top box art.

Candy X: The Morinaga OX

At long last I have managed to add this beautifully tiny Zero-X plastic model by Morinaga candy of Japan to my collection of SWORD miniatures. Packaged in a neat square box it comes in various parts and snaps together easilly. The grey heatshield and engines, together with a sheet of neat transfers, complete the model. Who needs the candy when you get toys like this!

Cruisin'

This week I dusted off my T* boat fleet for a quick cruise round the Moonbase attic before Wote arrives in early August. Seeing my plastic Dolphin Cruiser, shown below, reminded me of the Corgi version I recently saw on Ebay pictured above. The Corgi version is dated 1965, which I feel certain is much earlier than my larger T version. T may have indeed copied Corgi. Has anyone else got any Dolphin Cruisers, even a real one?

* T refers to Sixties plastic Hong Kong-made toys branded with a T in a Circle. Their correct trading name was Tai Hing Plastics. They're of interest to SWORD collectors like me [and hence the blog] because they made the original Moon Bus, on which the C21 version is based, and a Moon Prospector, both beautifully boxed.