WOTAN'S BIRTHDAY! THE SPACE TOY COLLECTION OF COREY LECHAT

To celebrate Wotan's birthday here's a real treat for Moonbasers. Blog reader and super collector Cory LeChat has kindly sent me pictures from his huge archive of toy images. Corey supplied many carded toy pictures for the book Rack Toys and would like to share his space toy collection with Moonbase Central. Here's the first instalment of five including an amazing carded example of a blog legend, the Blakes 7 Hawk, appearing here for the first time with the maker's and brand names. More to follow and thanks a bunch Corey!

Anderson Xmas

SWORD mix

AHI Space Explorers

AHI Lunar Expedition

Jotastar Blake's 7 Cosmic Strikeforce range,

Hawk

BIRTHDAY MESSAGES FOR WOTAN

From Paul Vreede

 

 

_________________

 

 

Hi Woodsy,

Please wish Bill a Happy Birthday!

Cheers mate.

Ed Murray

____________

From Ed Berg

 

MANY HAPPY RETURNS TO COMMANDER WOTAN!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOTAN!

HAVE A 54321 THUNDERBIRTHDAY MATE!

 

 

ALL THE VERY BEST

FROM EVERYONE AT MOONBASE

IN PRAISE OF STICKLE BRICKS

Anyone remember stickle bricks? They were like lego but instead of biulding bricks they were like small hairbrushes without handles, which stuck together to form shapes.

The bricks came in all different shapes and colours and had an incredibly satisfying feel to them when they were joined together.

I made all sorts of stuff from Stickle Bricks: garages, cars, roads, fences and nameless shapes done for the sheer hell of it.

I also had a set of coloured plastic planks and rods which you could bolt together with plastic nuts and bolts by way of a plastic spanner! Wondrous! No idea what it was called though. A sort of plastic meccano.

I much prefered them both to lego. How about you readers?

NEW DISCOVERY FOR 2014: TARHEEL TASK FORCE ROCKETS ADVERT IN TOY CATALOGUE

Up till recently I had thought that Tarheel had only advertsied their SWORD range of toys in one toy catalogue in the late Sixties, namely this Wards page featuring the Moon Bus and Space Glider.

 

 

Last week, however, whilst searching the net for the plastic robot called Mr. LEM I came across another catalogue shocasing Tarheel SWORD toys. Result! It was in a Checkers Stores catalogue [undated] and features the three Task Force rockets [no mention of Project SWORD]. Here's the page, culled from Ebay a few years ago, by a member of the uber cool Alphadrome robot forum:

 

 

and here's a close-up, albeit very poor, of the three rockets, which cost the princely sum of 69 cents each.

 

 

 

The cover of the catalogue looks like this:

 

 

 

and, I presume, that the three rockets would have looked like these bad boys in the flesh [ assuming that they were indeed Tarheel and not the UK Century 21 range].

 

 

 

Is anyone aware of any other Tarheel Project SWORD adverts?

THE UGLIEST SPACE TOYS EVER!

Just as there are many beautiful space toys around, there are a good smattering of truly ugly ones too. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder so it really is a matter of personal taste. With that in mind here are my current top 5 ugliest space toys ever. Enjoy!

5. CLIM Nave Espacial

- there must have been an epidemic of mediocrity in the design studio that day

4. Space Squad Car

- just what is a goggle caeser? Or is it google ceaser?

3. Apollo Space Car

- I'm unsure about this one. Its not bad. I need a new number 3.

2. Climbleader Pioneer No.1 Car

- what the hell is it?

1. Galaxy Explorer - the ugliest of them all, a space steam iron! Why?

It could be a small dog too! Wonder if they dropped a K9 Doctor who toy and glued it back together any old way!

If you have a piccy of a really ugly space toy then send it to me at Moonbase and you'll see it here on the blog.

PS. from Ed Ice Berg

Woodsy,

Here's my vote for ugly space toy, the off-road vehicle w/trailer from the TootsieToy #1793 'Flash Gordon and The Evil Ming' playset. Not only is it ugly but designing a trailer meant to haul people behind an SUV is a really stupid idea.

Cheers

Ed

LEIF ERICSON FLASH SWORDSHIP?

[picture credit: projectrho]

 

 

The Lief Ericson Galactic Cruiser is a popular model kit. I can't help wondering f the Defenders of the Earth Flash Swordship, below, is based on the design too? What do you think readers?

PRODUCT PLACEMENT SPACEX STYLE: NOVA AGAIN

 

Eagle-eyed US reader and fellow blogger Ed Berg recently spotted this cool US TV advert on You Tube. Pulp Fiction legend Samual L. Jackson chats away whilst a huge silver Nova rocket zooms across the screen behind him! Wotan, whose seen it too, remarked that it is almost completely the Ed Valigursky illustration brought to life. Talk about shelf life!

 

 

The Nova does have form when it comes to being exploited for its good looks. If you remember we've featured the SpaceX/ Golden Astronaut Nova toy's appearance on Micheal Moorcock's Black Corridor paperback. To can't keep a good Nova down!

 

 

 

PS. I've just noticed that the title of this book, Black Corridor, with its suggestion of a dark path, is similar to the title of the novel which features the Nova's SpaceX stablemate the LAMA, Sinister Barrier. Maybe the black corridor leads to the sinister barrier! Or is it the other way round?

 

 

Readers, any other instances of SpaceX/ Golden Astronaut on film, ads, books, sweet wrappers etc would be welcomed!