BATS ON THE FREEWAY!

Hi,

Having just seen Terranova47's neat diorama of the 1940s Batmobile stuck in traffic, here is my 1960's one taking advantage of the new motorway system for a fast and easy journey!

Drive safely!

Kevin D

UK

BATMAN'S STUCK IN TRAFFIC!

Hello Woodsy,

In the 1950's American DC comic imports to the UK were few and far between but we did have b/w reprints of them imported from Australia. 

The Batman stories were older than then current ones and the first Batmobile seen was the 1940's one with a high tail fin.

I created one for my train layout set in London in the 50's where the Batmobile is stuck in traffic.

I also have on display what may have been a Corgi Toys 1/42 scale diecast version.

Somewhere in a carton I have a similar diecast one that is unassembled in kit form and comes with a screwdriver.

What do you think?

Terranova47

USA

Hokey religions and Ancient weapons are No match for a good Blaster at your side, James!

 Having yesterday returned from the Star Wars fest that was Junior's sith birthday, I'm seeing the rebellion everywhere!

Take this James Bond 1979 Lone Star Moonraker weapon.

Does that look like a blaster to you?

ABANDON SHIP!

 

This Thunderbird 3 lies abandoned in Hegang in China.

Have you seen any abandoned spaceships?

ARTO'S BATMOBILES

Arto has sent in pics of his new Batmobile treasures.

I'll let Arto explain: 

First up is a trio of Clifford Hoover Batmobiles in various stages of (dis)repair. The most complete one is still missing its beacon cage.

Second photo is of the Aoshin (ASC) Batmobile.

Third one is a mystery. No maker's mark, but makes you think of Argentina or similar. It is actually smaller than the Aoshin, even though photos suggest otherwise.

Have you got any batmobiles readers?

Further Glimpses of Childhood

We are still at Juniors place.

Here's the bundle on his window sill. The sarellite dish badge is from Jodrell Bank, a UK space listening post. The tin contains his milk teeth. The Tooth Fairy was broke after that lot!

Wallpaper and mobile

The local playground, a reminder of my own childhood. Cold, wintry slides and empty spaces.

Lonely distant footy fields we used to call recs, short for recreation spaces I think.

Junior's rocket launcher in the playground. His double jump technique sent the foam rockets sky high!

Did you go to playgrounds and recs as a kid readers?

A Millennium Thankyou

 Vader is cheering and the AT AT is cock a hoop!

Thanks to the amazing generosity of my friend Paul Vreede his Millennium Falcon wended it's way from Belgium to Moonbase Junior's house here in Yorkshire for his Sixth birthday yesterday.

Here it is at Moonbase beforehand cleaned up and ready for wrapping.

I mean, Wow!

I added a couple of missing ramp struts

And popped in some new batteries for warp speed.

My friend Wotan was also super generous with his donation to Junior of spare Star Wars action figures and beasts.

I mean, Wow again!

We added an AT AT and the spaceship on top and away we went.

We were ready to wrap!

On behalf of Junior, who has now unwrapped everything and done the Kessel run in 11 parsecs, me and Missus Moonbase would like to say a huge galactic thankyou to Paul and Wotan for their fabulous gifts.

THE PROJECT SWORD MOON BASE SET: TAKING STOCK

 Project SWORD fans have often pondered long and hard about the fabled Moon Base Set as illustrated in the Project SWORD Manual.

Does it exist?

As far as I know there have been two sightings of the set, one good sighting in a box inside a shop and one less detailed sighting in Hong Kong.

No known commercially sold examples exist i.e. a toy set in a box and no known example of a loose set either.

The two sightings may well have been prototypes or trade samples for shops set up in the way that the Elf Toys Tracy island displays were set up for Century 21 Thunderbirds toys.

The two most prominent Project SWORD trade displays that we know of, Hong Kong and Hatchetts, contained the entire range of larger SWORD toys but no Moon Base set, despite it being the logical choice for a SWORD diorama. It wasn't there.

Disappointingly the Project SWORD Annual itself failed to offer anything about the Moon Base Set either. No ads, no strips, no drawings. Not encouraging at all. Having said that neither did it contain anything about the Nuclear Ferry and the Scouts but we know they do exist.

If an entire set has never turned up then have any of the constituent parts? The modules and the vehicles? As far as I can tell the answer is no. Certainly no toy lunar modules in the vein of those shown in the Moon Base drawing have surfaced. None of the big space toy firms released anything like them: Century 21, LP, Hover etc in the 1960's.

Tri-ang SpaceX did offer a Moon Base Set called just that but despite it containing a Scramble Bug and a Moon Prospector, like those pictured in the SWORD Moon Base set illustration, its housing modules are completely different.

Imai and later Aoshin released a UFO Moon Base Set, which also contained modules and vehicles including among many others a SWORD Scramble Bug and Moon Prospector. Sadly the modules are nothing like those again pictured in the Project SWORD Moon Base illustration.

There is also the question of which toy vehicles they were? Were they the existing Prospector and Bug? This would have made the Moon Base Set huge. So were they SpaceX sized, maybe the small toy craft released by Hover, which included a Scramble Bug?

We can ponder till the cows come home on this one and no doubt we will. Until then here's the Project SWORD Moon Base Set entry in the Official Project SWORD Manual.

Thoughts on its parts, box, existence and scale welcomed!