Lledo and Vera Lynn by Paul Adams

Dame Vera Lynn - The Lledo Model

British singer Dame Vera Lynn died on 18th June 2020, aged 103. During WW2 she was known as the Forces Sweetheart, as she sang and broadcast to Allied troops around the world.

In the 1990s Lledo used her nick-name for a set of five models depicting singers and actresses from the early 1940s. Vera Lynn being the only British star in the series.

All the models were based on Lledo model DG52, the 1935 Morris Parcels Van, which is mainly metal with only a few plastic parts. Model length 92 mm. Each vehicle was painted a different colour, with a black chassis and mudguards, and carried a head and shoulders portrait of the star on each side, using a very limited palette. 

This meant that each colour had to be used for several different parts of the picture, which resulted in Betty Grable, probably the most famous blonde in Hollywood at the time, having light blue hair. That is just weird. The series title was carried on a heart on the cab roof.

All the models came in a standard Lledo window box, with header, and a brief historical note on the back.

The series was not as well done as many other Lledo sets, but I am fond of it, as it was collecting these models (as well as those from the Goodnight Sweetheart series) that introduced me to die-cast collecting in the 1990s.

The models were numbered in the Lledo Promotional series. The first two digits identify the casting, and the last three digits the finish.

LP52023 - Betty Grable (1916-73) - Dark blue truck, with the circle and heart in light blue. Portrait in flesh, three shades of blue, and brown. Red lips, blue eyes, and blue hair. Bluish-white lettering.

LP52024 - Dorothy Lamour (1914-96) - Light grey/green truck, with the circle and heart in teal. Portrait in flesh, light and dark brown. Red lips, teal eyes, sandy brown hair. Dark reddish-brown lettering. 

LP52025 - Marlene Dietrich (1901-92) - Green truck, with a red background circle to the portrait. Uniquely, the heart on the cab roof is a different colour – gold. The portrait is flesh, white, brown, and light grey/green. Red lips, brown eyes, white/grey/brown hair. White lettering.

LP52026 - Rita Hayworth (1918-87) - The truck is sand, with the background circle and heart in red. Portrait in flesh, brown, pale yellow, and deep pink. Red lips, brown eyes, and blonde hair. Lettering is dark brown on the sides, and white on the cab roof.

LP52027 - Vera Lynn (1917-2020) - The truck is red, with the circle and heart in gold. She also wears a metallic gold dress. Portrait in flesh, gold, white, brown. Red lips, brown eyes, brown/grey hair. All lettering in white.

Paul Adams
NZ

Pin It Down

 Ok fellow space fans, a question for you. Does anyone recognise this badge ? Its plastic with gold finish and a small brass pin on the rear, no makers marks. I bought it on ebay, seller advertised it as a 'thunderbirds' badge.

 It bears more than a passing resemblance to the SWORD series of badges, especially the Supremo (not pictured as I haven't got a Zero X sob!) and is roughly the same size.

 I always loved the Sword badges and was especially blown away when Fanderson made a wonderful metal version a few years ago, a tough larger than the original, but just as impressive.

 Heres the mystery badge lined up against the metal version for scale and Fanderson's frisbee-like metal Zero-X badge too.

Climb Every Mountain

Non Fall Climbing Vehicles were a big staple of my toy collection as a kid, I had loads of different ones and as they were meant to be able to climb over anything, I just as frequently broke them. The wheels invariably came off, or the motors stopped working, so they would end up in the bin, or in the bottom of the toybox gathering dust. There are lots of different variations by as many different makers, but these two caught my eye as they were a little different. First of all, they are a lot small than the standard climbers, at around 4". Secondly,  there were only two in the series, making it quite practical to find both.

 I bought the red one initially for the antenna, as it was small enough to use for an Apollo Tracker customisation, so this one has the replacement dishes, made out of Lego. The unboxed blue version turned up some months later, missing two small claws on the front.

 I replaced the claws with some plastic Meccano chain links, painted silver. The blue ones gearing wasn't working, so I opened it up to find a small piece had broken inside. Unusually, the wheels are driven by a toothed belt, running from the main drive gear across both sets of axles, giving 4 wheel drive.

 The box is a nice example of good packaging, bold and colourful, with photos of both models and a neat diorama as well.

 The diorama seems to have a kit version of a Lunar Module (assembled backwards) and some odd astronauts.

 The maker is AA, which recently featured on the blog too, suggesting it may be a greek maker, but the toy is clearly labeled Made in Hong Kong.

 The blue version is the Moon Rover and the red one the Moon Patrol. Although described as 'non-stop' action, they do struggle a little bit on rough ground due to the very low clearance of the body, but do flip over neatly when encountering a wall.

TOYTOWN RESCUE: OUR PLAYMOBIL AMBULANCE

This is Moonbase Junior's new old Playmobil Ambulance from 1994.

It really is a thing of beauty and Missus Moonbase adores buying vintage toys from this range for him! Complete and a real bargain.

He loves playing with them too!

I personally like this boxy design with the huge windscreen a great deal. Almost Gerry Anderson styling!

Do you like Playmobil?

Return to Base

The Cold War may have been a trying time for adults in the U.S, but for space crazy kids, it was a boom time. A little inconvenience like the threat of carpet bombing by enemy aircraft or ICBM's dropping out of a dawn sky was not going to stop toy manufacturers making a fast buck before a nuclear holocaust affected consumer spending. As a result, companies like Remco, Topper and Deluxe Reading produced some amazingly complex and involved toys, themed on the idea of countering an enemy missile strike. Needless to say, these expensive toys were slavishly copied by the small Hong Kong manufacturers to be snapped up by an eager audience.

A fine example of this plagiarism is the Delamare Rocket Launching set, blatantly ripped off from Remco's Voice Control Rocket Base. The Delamare set uses elements from the Apollo Moon Exploring range, such as the conical rocket, which unusually, has been produced in bronze, with two upper sections to extend the body and give it a more missile like shape. The anti aircraft missile bank on the left, has been fitted with two non-firing launchers taken from the LP Moon Bus (themselves copied from Lone Star Modern Army series years earlier). The lifting arm between them is also featured on one of the Moon Vehicles sold in abundance too: https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2010/01/strange-tractor.html

The whole set is neatly finished off with some grey astronauts helpfully glued onto the superstructure, a miniscule green Helicopter fixed to the pad, a small army truck and a flight of three chrome silver F111A swing wing fighters, hideously out of scale, glued to the back of the box. My example came in a battered box, with a Xmas Greetings sticker still attached. Its plain that the toy had never been removed from its pack, the base was securely wired in and everything was in place. Its amusing to see the note on the front reads - THIS IS A TOY - just in case the buyer was tempted to try and defend his personal airspace.

Next on the copyists list comes another Missile Array from Redbox Toys. Originally made by Topper Toys for the Cape Canaveral set, this little battery also appears as part of the Apollo Moon Exploring series, by Imperial, but exchanging the rocket launchers for Radar Dishes.: 

http://www.triangspacextoys.info/SpGAderv/APEX/ApEx304F.html

I originally had this, the Atlas Gantry and a Rocket Transporter in the seventies, each coming separately window boxed with a handful of white figures. The semi circular Atlas Gantry actually fires the missile and the three carried by the transporter could be used with it. Unlike the big Topper base, the transporter only came with a single missile design, although Multiple Toymakers did 'borrow' one of the other types for a slightly larger 'Titan' missile in a rack toy.

http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2014/08/failure-to-launch.html

Deluxe Reading probably produced the great grandaddy of all rocket bases with the elaborate Operation X-500, which took all the elements from previous releases, beefed them up somewhat and added extra features like lights and moveable controls. It fairly bristles with rockets and gadgets and even has a train to deliver the interchangeable nosecones to the gantry, to be lifted by crane onto the rocket! Its complexity probably worked in its favour, as to my knowledge, the Hong Kong companies never managed to reproduce a small version of it, although they did come close!

Finally this fine Cape Kennedy rack toy, with powerful spring launched rocket and ejectable satellite!

The gantry helpfully rolls back from the rocket and a large well-detailed radar dish tracks the ascent.

Card artwork is especially fine, with clear renditions of Mercury Redstone type rocket and instructions for use on the inner pack.

Safety conscious, the rocket was tethered to the launcher by string, the upper stage springing out to push the circular satellite into space as the rocket is stopped in its rapid ascent by the string. Quite a powerful ascent it is too, untethered the rocket can easily reach a good twenty feet.

Pure Moonscapism

Spacex Superset Craterscape

My recent photoshoots have all taken advantage of some ready made moonscapes, all in vacuum formed plastic. One of the first Spacex Supersets contained a moonscape, in fragile white plastic, shaded in pale blue. When I first saw one as a kid, I was taken with the colour and it has stuck with me ever since. Decades later, I finally got one and was surprised how small it actually is, about a foot square. With Spacex toys, the only really practical area to place them is in the centre, otherwise the jagged terrain means that only two wheels will be in contact with the terrain, making a very odd looking picture.

I picked up a piece of military diorama online, a shell scored landscape, which doubles as a moonscape quite well. I tried to paint this one in a similar fashion to the Spacex one, but its perhaps a little highly coloured. Its about 7 inches long and ideal for the smaller vehicles like Kinder Egg Space. The circular  Airfix Lunar Module base is a nice handy size for displaying small models too.

The largest of the dioramas came from a Johnny Astro set and is made from a slightly heavier plastic, which is possibly blow-moulded than vac-formed. Its a more striking blue and features the central crater, but with sweeping hills and other features around it.

The last four are made by Dekker Toys in the seventies - as you can see from the box, which sports an Airfix Hawk and Mego Black Hole and Buck Rogers figures. These four scapes were designed as 'paint it yourself' projects for kids and when I bought them on ebay, someone had tried to give them a once over with brown enamel. First of all I painted them with A Dulux Matchpot of white emulsion and then gradually built up colour and tone in blue and grey, finishing off with white highlights again. As the detail on them was a little sparse, I took the opportunity while I had them out at the weekend, to repaint them with some PVA Texture Gel, a white glue with glass beads in it. As the PVA dries clear, I dry brushed the shadows and tones in with a couple of spare pots of blue and grey I had lying around.

The little beads looked especially effective with some side lighting and resemble dust and broken rock on the surface, whilst the streaks in the PVA added additional texture.

Note the scientifically inaccurate teabags!

DINKY TOYS TV SPACE AND SPECIALS BLOG: NEW SHADO 2

Check this Dinky SHADO 2 variant out on the cool Dinky Toys blog.

https://dinkytvspace.com/2020/07/03/shado-control/

ROCKET PAINT BOX

Woodsy

I saw your post, http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2020/06/painting-space.html , and it reminded me of this paint box I bought many years ago in a secondhand store. No paints are inside.

Enjoy your blog! Keep up the great posts.

Jim Lowe

https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/