THE TOTALLY TALL TIN SPACE SHIP X-7

 When I first got the collecting bug around 1989 I bought my first toy reference book, Kitahara's monsters, rockets and robots or something like that. A totally fabulous book about the foremost collection in Japan. I still have it.

This picture I saw online reminds me of that collection - it could well be Kitahara's toy cabinet - so I posted it again here. Bristling will tall ships, it was always the huge X-7, which caught my eye the most, the big green one at the back.

What a gorgeous space plane!

Here's a closer look at the X-7 in two different colours, an image again I've borrowed from Alphadrome online. I'm not entirely sure how tall these tin toys are but they look massive!

Have you got one or anything similar readers?

Eight Legs Very Good

Despite doing my best to downsize the collection, theres often something pops up that I just can't leave. A case in point were these two Multimac Ocean Discovery vehicles.

Called Octopathfinders, they owe more to crustacea than molluscs in their design, having jointed limbs rather than tentacles, but their are 8 of them, hence the 'octo' prefix. Being Multimac, all the elements are interchangeable and can be swapped between toys too, so spare elements from these two and the bag of loose parts that came with them, can fit onnthe larger toys in the range - such as the Crab Navigator and Lobster.

The figures, like most Multimac stuff, are the slightly larger poseable ones about 2" tall and lifted almost exactly from Bluebirds MANTA force range. Earlier Multimac were a scale down and borrowed Tomy Zoid pilots.

The basic saucer shape is quite pleasing and reminiscent of the heavy industrial look that Ron Cobb intended for the first Alien film. The jointed, articulated legs would not look out of place with Lego Bionicle sets.

The Ocean Discovery line makes an interesting change from space industrial styling and reaches even further into Zoids territory with the zoomorphic mech design.
 

TITAN II GEMINI TWO MAN SPACE CAPSULE

 

I saw this double act on an online sale and saved the pic because one the companies is completely new to me, Gladden, on the left.

I think they've produced a real gem of a toy with this two man capsule. It looks great and quite sturdy. It would need to be because its a parachute toy. I'm unsure how it works but there's a small orange tool up top and a white nozzle at the base. Oh and a parachute. I assume its thrown in the air. Do you know?

The Quercetti Tor is a classic chute toy and many of you will have had this or similar judging by how many times its come up on Moonbase. 

Did you have any parachute toys as a kid?

SATURDAY MORNING CAPTION TIME!

 

I saw this rubber fella online and he made me smile, the old jiggler.

He's not happy though. He needs some captions folks!

C'mon!

THE REVELL GEMINI SWEEPSTAKES

Hi

Here is a very interesting item from Celebrating Aviation With Mike Machat, on the contests run by various model companies. One, the Revell Gemini Sweepstakes in 1967, offered a full-size, 19 foot, Gemini space capsule as the first prize. 

This is described as a prototype, built by McDonnell, who made the real Gemini craft. As it was a bit big to fit into the average home, it was a condition of the contest that the prize be donated to a local park or museum. You also got a Vox guitar and a full set of Revell kits. 

There were 29 Second Prizes, also of a guitar, which really seems like an odd prize for a model contest. Imagine winning your very own spaceship. Now all you need is a rocket to launch it into space.

MODEL CONTESTS - Selling Model Kits in the Space Age - YouTube

Paul Adams from New Zealand

GREEK JEEP

 This plastic Elvip Lyra military jeep caught my eye online.

It reminds me of the plastic Century 21 Toys Hurdler ...

But it also has a flavour of one of my big 3 tinplate toys I had as a kid in the Sixties, the wonderful Desert Patrol Jeep, a toy I managed to replace about 20 years ago.

Have you any Jeeps or did you have readers?

Johnny Keating's Getaway [1963] set to Attack from Space Fight Scene [1965]

Hi Woodsy thought this might be of interest. There's numerous scientific papers written about the cross colonisation of culture.

This video in it broadest sense shows the how eastern culture has taken on Western culture. That said I could watch this kind of bonkers all day long - the film is Attack from Space, Japan, 1965

I'm also not under the illusion this music came with the film, who ever put this on here deserves an Oscar, Best use of music in a motion picture!!

Do you agree?

Regards

MJ

Southcoast Base

UK

POSTSCRIPT: Woodsy here: I couldn't help noticing how similar that old 1965 clip of Starman taking on an army from Attack from Space is to the playground fight scene in Matrix Reloaded between Neo and the many many Smiths [2003]! 

Do I detect an inspiration here? What do you think?

PLAYMOBIL RESCUE HELICOPTER AND FRIENDS

I picked this little lot up at a car boot sale recently.

Supe and Spidey are holding up an old Rockets and Jets book.

 

The old Playmobil bundle appears to be made up of different sets from the 1980's. The figures are marked 1974 on their soles.

I do rather like Playmobil and we have a lot of it for Moonbase Junior.

Do you like it?