NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST

Well this morning I saw something which struck terror into my old bones as a Project SWORD toy passed the one thousand pound mark on ebay. It was perhaps understandable as it was the elusive Nuclear Ferry, probably the third or fourth model known to exist. I can breathe slightly easier in the knowledge that I have the second model discovered, but it is dismaying to see toys reaching such astronomical prices.

Its probable that this was partly due to the ' blog effect ' as toys highlighted on the blog often appear for silly money at auction, but this model started at a very modest opener and was driven up by demand. I must say, however that it is easily worth the money too as it is a toy benchmark, beautifully designed and with a great backstory.

The other slight compensation is that there clearly are other rare models still out there after almost half a century, so we may yet see a moonbase on the blog...

JIGGLERS AND THINGS

Saw a kid at a festival t'other weekend playing with what I would have called a rubber jiggler when I was a nipper. Rubber jigglers were sold from display boxes on the counters of Preston's toy shops. They were basically monsters, which slipped over the finger. I think Bill's a big jiggler fan too! Are they still available?

Kenner's old Swamp Thing action figure line used something similar to Jigglers too. I wonder if Jiggler collectors go for them as well?  

I used to love Swamp Thing and Man Thing comics. Hard to say who'd beat the other in a Thing-off! What do you think? 

 

MORE BERWICK JR21 PISTOL AND FAIRYLITE LADY PENELOPE

If only we had access to old toy manufacturers we could clear up mysteries there and then. But we don't and Andersonalia continues to bring on head scratching. A while ago I asked whether the Berwick Thunderbirds Uniform included the JR21 Thunderbirds pistol.

Well, there appears to be evidence that it did. Checking the large webpage of the Dutch Lester Demon, there is a photograph of a uniform set containing just such a pistol: http://lester.demon.nl/superm/tbirds/merc-gallery.html . There is also a basic uniform by a company called Eba Stevens just above the Berwick suit! Now that's another new one on me! Be warned, the site takes ages to open because of all the images. Does this put a lid on the Berwick pistol puzzle?

 

Check out the Lady Penelope Play Suit whilst your'e there, which I assume is Berwick as well.

 

Speaking of Penelope, I recently spotted this doll online, which at first glance I thought was a variant of the Fairylite Lady Penelope. It is a Bonnie Blue Ribbon Doll made by Perfekta for Marquette to promote the National Blue Ribbon Freezer Food Service [date?]. You can compare it with the Fairylite doll below [Ebay].

 

Elegance, charm and deadly dolls!

RIDDLE OF THE STONES

 

I'm just doing some computer maintenance and uploading all my pictures to a separate 160GB hard-drive. I've not done it for a while and despite a lot of duplication, I'm uploading everything, all 18,000 images, 10GB, going back years.

 

 

Amongst them this popped up as a duplicate so I thought I'd blog it as I found it so amusing. It's an interpretation board on a rocky beach in Iceland, which I snapped whilst holidaying there in 2009. The board describes in various languages how a series of stones, which are lying in a group on the beach [and they are!], can be lifted to test a person's strength! Fishermen  did it originally. Believe me, those stones are heavy and I won't say whether I managed any or not! ha ha!

 

 

Has anyone seen them too or anything like them?

Riddles of the Sands

For some time I have wanting to see a movie called the Riddle of the Sands from 1979. It stars Micheal York, who is one of the quintessential British actors of the Sixties and will be familiar to readers from Logan's Run and latterly Austin Powers. Whilst I continue to track down a copy of the film, there are a number of real riddles in the sands, so to speak, which do fascinate me.

First we have the old story of a film set leftover from an epic Cecil B Demille movie, long forgotten and buried in the sands of time, literally. You can read more about it here:

http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/03/19/the-fascinating-story-of-cecil-demilles-lost-city/

The second riddle is more recent. In fact it is very much current and concerns a German World War II plane being recovered from British waters. You can read more about this one here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22380915

Finally, we have the recent endeavour of a British man to unearth long lost Spitfires in a distant desert. A noble quest but sadly one in which he did not succeed. Read more here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/aviation/9811196/Search-for-lost-Spitfires-ends-in-failure-for-treasure-hunters.html

Have you any knowledge of these 'riddles' or 'quests'? If so, please share it with us or indeed any other stories of lost sets, vehicles, comics. programmes, props, toys and their attempted recovery.

JOHNNY COME LATELY

Ive had my Johnny Apollo figure for a few years now, along with the two large ground vehicles. Marx did a brilliant job with the figure sculpts, attaining a high level of realism without sacrificing playability. Whereas Mattel opted for a flexible armature in a rubber body for Matt Mason, Johnny is a solid plastic with riveted joints and a spring connector holding the limbs in tension inside the body cavity. Head and hands are soft flexible plastic, allowing the accessories to be gripped easily. Just today I received the other major colour variation of the figure, sporting an orange flight suit. Marx also ensured a little variety with a reddish brown hair. All I need to do now is find a Jane Apollo for the boys and i'll be about done!

KENNER SSP RACERS

Complimenting Bill's earlier post on Kenner's SSP Revrods when he described the four models that were released in Britain I've found some American ads showing more of the range that we never got here in Blighty.

 

TOYS ON COVERS: SPACEWAYS COMIC AND ADVENTURE ANNUALS AND PYRO TOYS

Reader Nyrath the Nearly Wise recently told me how cool he thought the Pyro Space Cruiser was and Scoop's recent post showcased it brilliantly. To keep the pyre burning I've put together this collage of the toy and appearances of similar spacecraft on the covers of magazines, Spaceways and the Adventure Annual, which appeared on the blog in its first couple of years courtesy of Andy B and other readers. Nyrath also gave me this great link to a Pyro lookalike posted by super space archivist John Sisson over at his terrific blog Dreams of Space.