ED VALIGURSKY'S MEN

I always like to see Ed Valigursky's book covers.

In particular I like his men of the future, which I've mentioned before years ago.

I've just noticed that these red-shirted chaps in Philip K. Dick's Eye in the Sky remind me greatly of Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame.

Maybe the Search for Spock?

What do you think?

THE RACE INTO SPACE POSTER

Hello Woodsy, 

As part of your general Space Theme back in 1971 Brooke Bond Tea issued a set of picture cards called The Race Into Space. 

When Brooke Bond did these sets, in order to promote the educational value they would produce a poster version for distribution to schools. The early ones were canvas backed with wood rods top and bottom like old wall maps. 

By the 70's they were paper. 

This is my copy. 

Not as exciting as SPACEX which was it's contemporary but interesting never the less. 

Terranova47

NYC

UNDER THE RADAR

When is plastic tin?

When its the Space Radar Car.

I saw this on the Bay and thought it was plastic.

Its not. Its main body is tin I'm sure.

But its really hard to tell.

The description didn't help although the seller is tin toy guy.

The base looks plastic though!

I think I can see the LN logo.

We have seen an all plastic version of this toy.

Firstly back in 2010, a boxed one in a book. 

I thought it was an LP toy back then.

Compare the boxes.

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2010/06/summer-special-new-vehicle-in-lp-fleet.html

Arto prophetically pointed out in the comments even then that the plastic toy was in fact released by LN.

8 years later Arto brought us all up to date with more LN insights in his post this year

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2018/05/science-friction-ln-range-of-plastic.html

At the start of all these there was a tin toy which I assume began this mini radar craze, the Masudaya Radar Scout Pioneer I mentioned back in 2010.

Compare the box.

Have you a radar car or any other LN toy?

DENTDALE TOYS

Missus Moonbase and I visited the stunningly beautiful Yorkshire Dales this Autumn.

The tour took us to Dent in Dentdale and its heritage centre.

A bevvy of vintage tractors greeted us.

along with Pelham's Pinky and Perky hanging

Noddy sleeping

Rupert standing

a horse-drawn cart on the dresser

Vintage tinplate trains

Miniature railway

Welcoming minaitures

Oldtimers [not sure of make]

and in Sedburgh, the book town, a convocation of Eagle Annuals

Have you got any of these toys or annuals?

TEDDY RUXPIN HACKED MY MAJOR

Moonbase Jr. is unwell again and I'm waiting for news from the GP's.

Trying to keep positive I'm blogging a bit.

I saw a piece on the news last night about hacking toys. I had to watch it intently to understand what was going on. Essentially it would seem that electronic computerised toys can be remotely hacked and operated by a third party.

The examples shown were a modern Teddy Ruxpin and a talking toucan. Teddy could be controlled by a stranger to behave how they wanted. 

More alarmingly the toucan could be hacked to say what a third party wanted. By way of a demonstration the news team's expert hacked a Teksta toucan via Bluetooth and got it to say that it was watching everyone in the house and will always watch everyone in the house!

Hacking is a new phenomenon and one us baby boomers didn't experience. The closest we got to hacking were siblings nabbing our Major Matts or Action Men for their own nefarious experiments with magnifying glasses and matches!

How common is computer toy hacking these days?

Have you come across it before readers?

MOONBASE JUNIOR'S NEW GARAGE

Thought I'd share a pic of Moonbase Grandson's 'new' toy garage.

Its an old second hand tower of a thing and he adores it!

I think its about 15 years old and maybe made by Chicco or Little Tikes.

Amazingly it was free of charge off Facebook. It just needed cleaning!



Moonbase Jr. likes to park up his die-casts and then send each one down the various ramps.

This was a rather blurred shot I took under the top ramp but here goes anyway. The silver car is a 1980 Firebird by Kidco.

What do you think of the garage?

Up the Pole

In response to Woodsy's 'Fading of the Bug' post, here is a small insight into another odd facet of my collecting mania: Totem Poles.

When I was about 6 or 7 my dad would regularly buy Britains Farm, Zoo, Army and Cowboy figures for me and my sisters and Miniature Garden specifically for them. I think it was another way of vicariously enjoying toys for him, as I never really played with the cowboys and indians, much preferring the army soldiers. However, I was always fascinated by the native american figures and specifically the totem pole ( coloured one in centre of photo). My dad helpfully painted it with Airfix enamels - the ones in the small glass bottles - in bright colours.

Years later, my mum brought me a weird black resin Totem Pole from a local market as she knew I loved primitive art.

The only identification was an inscribed word on the base - 'Boma'. I put it on a shelf and forgot about any real significance until around 2000 when I began surfing ebay. One day out of boredom, I looked for Boma Totems and a whole world opened up in front of me.

Boma is a small manufacturing company that recreates original designs made in argyllite by pacific coastal tribes, as souvenirs for tourists in British Columbia and Alaska. Within minutes, I was hooked on the fabulous designs of thunderbirds, killer whales and ravens and naturally bought one or two. then one or two more. Today, I have around 200 different types of souvenir pole and cannot display more than one or two, so I created a blog on which I photographed and posted each one, for my own amusement and to record an online catalogue, so I didn't accidentally buy the same one twice! Needless to say I have.

Recently, I picked up a beautiful hand carved wooden pole by a local artist for a few pounds and it rekindled my interest once more, so I decided to update the blog. Land of the Thunderbird is basically an online catalogue with notes and pictures, which i will add to on a regular basis, untill my entire collection is back online, where I can look upon these wonders and enjoy them in the same vicarious fashion my dad must have as he watched from his armchair as I lined up my Britains and Timpo cowboys.

https://wotansworld.blogspot.com/

THE FADING OF THE BUG

Domestic matters gave ascended in my personal firmament of late so I've been absent from commenting on MB.

Bill B has kindly taken up the commenting reins and I'm very grateful.

This maybe the case for some while yet.

In the meantime I find I have a spare ten minutes to ruminate on less mundane things than our dodgy oven.

I recently took out some junk to the bin. One item made me think twice. It was an old kid's Spider-Man T-shirt. Being a super-hero related item I had real difficulty releasing it from my hands to fall into that dark maw of oblivion. 

Ever since I began collecting, buying and selling toys and collectables, I have been consistently fixated with super-heroes. This manifested itself most often in buying action figures and vehicles at car boot sales, but my addiction stretched much further into anything related to the super ones.

So chucking this T-shirt I realised that something had happened. About 10 to 15 years ago I would had trashed it. It would have been washed, ironed and put in the packing case ready for my next toy fair stand. I always had a few items of second-hand Marvel or DC clothing like this.

Letting it go confirmed that my obsession had waned dramatically and that the 'bug' had faded. Is fading. This is a salutary moment for a one-time zealous collector, the revelation that the spark that once drove me to spend hundreds of hours buying, selling, identifying, cataloguing, ebaying and toy fairing anything and everything super-hero/ sci-fi/ monster/ fantasy/ TV/ pop culture and space related was growing weaker.

Even worse, after the initial tang of nostalgia for my younger self, I am in some ways comfortable with this new less-manic frame of mind. No more rooting on the edges of old rubbish tips for Seventies crisps packets [ and yes, I found some!], no more getting up at the crack on a Sunday to spend all day in a cold sports centre behind my 'Madaboutmonsters' stand [it was great fun though] and no more squirrelling away anything remotely pop cultural. Smaug has well and truly left the Mountain.

Another good example is this Star Wars shaving foam can. I bought it ten years ago specifically for the can. 

Yes, I used the foam on various cakes but really it was the act of putting t away that I was interested in. It came out of hibernation last week as part of our de-clutter programme and like the T-shirt found itself teetering on the brink of the wheelie-bin.

It fell in and no ...... I didn't rake it out!

Is your collecting bug fading readers? Have you cut back or modified your squirreling?