SIXTEEN 12 AT THE TOY FAIR

Sixteen 12 Collectables have been showing off some of their upcoming new range at the 2020 Toy Fair at London Olympia this week.

Some really nice items too, including figures of John Koenig,Alan Carter and Helena Russell. Here's a few photos from Sixteen 12's new catalogue.

There's the new Earthbound Eagle sets and UFO Interceptor sets, which we have seen already seen in  teaser photos.

The previous Product Enterprise  Shado Mobiles have been given a make over which will now come with either a P.E. UFO or Sky 1 (presumably from the original P.E. Skydiver model) There's also retro versions of the each of the three Mobiles (in Dinky Blue) and SHADO Interceptor (in Dinky Green) Both come with display plinths.

There's also a die cast Hawk in scale with the 12"Eagles, and a fabulous Comlock and Stungun set.

HYPER HOBBY DASH AND PROJECT SWORD

This is the Hyper Hobby Dash magazine from Japan, 1998. 

I saw it on Noppin and saved these pics.

Here's the cover.

and here's one set of Imai pages, the left one featuring Project SWORD no less, in relation to Imai's yellow Thunderbird 7 model kit.

SUPER TOY PACK SPECIAL AGENT

De-cluttering reveals stuff. I'd forgotten about this Spacial Agent set I had.

In its clear baggy and with a generic header for pocket money type toys, I think I bought it from a Newsagents for 99p in the late 90's.

I was fascinated by spy and agent toys as a nipper and this continued into adulthood. I picked up attache cases and agent sets wherever I could. It was fun selling them on.

I will have squirreled this set away for posterity and now it's surfaced it's part of our latest Ebay sales.

The contents appear to be general agent toys and similar cuffs, pistol, radio and ID card appeared in countless spy sets right into the noughties. Not sure if they're that popular now as the allure of cold war spies and the FBI may have waned in the minds of modern kids.

Did you - do you like spy and secret agent toys?

BEER NECESSITIES

Hello Woodsy,
The latest offering from my favourite brewery,
Regards.
Terranova47

CLOCKING OFF

Clocks used to be on everything.

Framed pictures, big radio's, even on the back plates of cookers. They were on the sides of buildings too and of course on everyone's wristwatches, which we all wore.

That's because when I was growing up people could tell the time. 

You know, clock time using hands that moved in a circle and numbers around the clock face.

Not so now. Modern kids tell digital time but nothing else. Not clock time.

Gone are the knotty problems we had involving the location of the big hand at quarter to 3 or where both hands should be at midnight.

Now it's what numbers appear on the screen of the fitbit or the smartwatch and continual questions about what time is it if they can't afford fit and smart tech, which many kids can't.

I can imagine a time when a generation emerges which no long requires old style clocks at all and they no longer appear on, well, anywhere.

Like the TV and the landline telephone, that third cornerstone of domestic information is on the wane, as this generation boots out the technology of their Grandparents straight into the skip.

In the not-too-distant future no-one will ring up on the landline to tell you to watch the News on the telly as long as you check its 6pm on the star-shaped wall clock.

Is it just me or do you feel the ground beneath your feet beginning to weaken?

OLD GACCH SITE: TRADE-PRESS REACTIONS TO CENTURY 21 PUBLICATIONS

Another slice of the defunct GACCH site now visible on the Wayback Machine. This brilliant research done by the GACCH authors was about the reactions of the trade press to Century 21 books, TV21 and other publications.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160306061016/http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk:80/UploadTBEx/YNToday03.htm

Have you got any of these publications? What do you think?

BLIMEY, THAT'S TECHNICAL!

I was thinking about how I used to copy cassette tapes for my friends back in the day. I used tape to tape on my Matsui cassette player. Here are a few more 'technical' words from my youth. Please add more in the comments!

Taping
tape to tape - taping from one cassette to another. it could be done at twice the speed too
graphic equaliser - getting the music tone right using five sliding buttons
bass boost - boosting the bass
dubbing - not sure what this was
counter - it counted where you were on the cassette tape, which we then wrote down religiously on the tape card sleeve i.e. timings.

Video
Tracking - trying to get the picture right using the remote
Cue - I was never sure what this was
Letterbox - a frame around the picture
V2000 - early video format that lost out to VHS
Betamax - early video format that lost out to VHS
Clamshell - puffed plastic video case that opened like a book
Big Box - early and larger plastic video cases, often clamshells


Record Player
Separates - different components of the system from different makers
Wharfdales - the best speakers around
Run out groove - the smooth collar at the end of the record
Stereo - either referred to double sound or the type of device - a stereo may have had a record player and a cassette player in it too.
music centre - record player, cassette player and record rack
gramaphone - old version of music centre
stylus - needle
Emitex - top brand of record cleaning cloth

DID YOU SELL GRIT?

Another constant in the backs of Marvel comics was Grit.

Selling Grit to be more exact.

When I was a kid I thought it was selling something like sand but on closer inspection I eventually worked out it was a US newspaper!

The ad promised prospective sellers baseball bats, bikes, cameras, torches and all manner of stuff that American kids wanted. 

British kids like me would have been happy with a candle and a bag of chips. We seemed to live in the middle ages in comparison!

Did you actually sell Grit?