SUNDAY SALES

 Today's early morning Sunday car boot and Martin House visit was fun. Powered with a greasy spoon plate of sausage, bacon, egg and coffee, we saw a few things and bought a few too.

The Missus was cock-a-hoop about this Ministeck boxed set. A sort of plastic mosaic set for making pictures of all sorts of things - this set was for dinosaurs - and a toy my Missus Moonbase adored as a kid growing up on the continent. Is it something you know?

This old Kodak instamatic camera was a blast from the past. £10 but can you still get instamatic film? Someone will snap it up I'm sure.

Not that old, this 1980 Brachiosaurus from the Natural History Museum weighed a ton! A solid plastic hunk, which some new kid will adore.

This bag of Dr.Who parts caught my eye but it all looked too modern for me.

In the Martin House shop this Scalextric V8 Supercars layout was set up for prospective buyers. You need Vroom for something like this!

I bought a 1980 Hot Wheels, a 1977 matchbox Field Gun and a Hot Wheels UFO spinner and Hot Turns bundle.

Right, that's it for the weekend. Back to the dreaded work tomorrow! [do you still work readers?]

GIVE IT SOME STICK!

One of my favourite Action Man uniforms as a kid was the German Stormtrooper and the Stick Grenade in particular.  A seemingly simple combination of a hammer handle and a tin can, I loved to get my Palitoy Fighting Man to hold the stick grenade in the classic throwing position. There was just something about its design and here's a couple I saw on Ebay.

I led a very militaristic life as a kid to be honest. War was a constant in the Sixties playroom and in the real world on the telly. My mates and I battled in the garden till the sun went down. We had everything, from field dressings to cap grenades but we never had a life size stick grenade like our Action Men.

Out of interest I recently checked to see if any toy firm back then actually released a stick grenade and lo and behold, Marx did! Here's a snap of a carded one from Worthpoint.

It appears to have been a single unit of plastic, which had a cap firing mechanism. Made in Swansea, Wales, it was called a 'souvenir' grenade, which is an odd word to use. My mates and I would have happily lobbed a few of these around the garden battlefield.

Did you have a favourite Action Man or GI Joe accessory?

JUNK DRAWER HEAVEN?

I saw this interesting bundle on the Bay last year.

What can you spot in there?

MEMORY LANE IN THE RAIN

A real trip down memory lane today for me with the Missus as we ventured forth to the town I used to work in for twenty years; Morley. I hadn't been back since 2005, when I finished my 'big' job. I was 44 then. I'm 62 now!

Despite the winter's rainy drizzle we were emboldened by a local pork pie and took advantage of the many charity shops. some of which I used to visit on my lunch breaks decades ago!

Today's catch was slim but fun and along the way we saw some interesting items on the shelves. What do you think?

First up, a large boxed Lego set 744, 1980, priced £30. It looked impressive!

A large plastic robot Overseer priced £40 and one I'd never heard of. Next to it was a Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Music Cartridge!

An interesting and near mint boxed game called Snake Eyes by Vic Toy/ Invicta, 1969, priced £5. A lovely item in great shape. I had the Invicta Mastermind game as a kid.

This Darth Vader spinner from 1997 brought back happy memories as I sold one on my old toy stall in the Noughties.

A whole stack of Dr. Who magazines, not one I've ever read. You?

We liked this framed print of steam engines hanging above the Market's excellent vintage corner, Junk and Disorderly. A print of an oil painting by Barrie A.F. Clark from 1977. Reading about the artist, it would appear that he helped designed and made prototype toys in the early 1960's, as well as doing his painting! I wonder which toys?

There were badges too, 50p each. I bought one!

Next door in the Market's record shop was this fab window display of Beatles LP and Singles covers.

A blast from the past for me was seeing a Broons and Oor Wullie annual. Along with Giles, my older brothers always got one of these annuals at Christmas in the early Seventies. Did you?

The two-man sub on the cover of Valiant 1968 caught my eye too. Is this an annual you had?

And to finish, a snap of something I struggled to scoff as a kid but love now, Glace Cherries! I saw these in Morley Morrisons.  There were always some in my Mum's kitchen cupboard next to the equally unusual candy peel! Do you like them?

and here's what I bought, a meagre trio of fun stuff.

The Belly of an Architect is a film I'd never heard of and even better it was on VHS Video Cassette, which I collect. The Heavy Nuggets CD is a compilation of unusual heavy rock tracks for the car.

Perhaps the best buy was the plastic Batman Badge. At first I thought it was a variant of the well-known Plaston plastic badge but then I saw a different brand name on the back, Di Bro and Made in England.

Turns out its from a Batman collectable from 1966 and one new to me, the ABC Interpass Badge and ID Card, which I found information on and borrowed these pictures from Worthpoint. Is it something you know readers?

AVENGERS DOLLS FROM PRODUCT ENTERPRISE: PART 1

 

Continuing with my Avengers TV series posts here’s something a little more up to date; John Steed & Emma Peel dolls from Product Enterprise, released in 2002.

This special edition set depicts the two super secret agents as they were dressed during the first Emma Peel filmed black & white season.

Both figures have a fairly monotone look. Steed is dressed in a grey suit, with suede collar, blue tie and red carnation. He wears his signature bowler hat, and carries his umbrella.

The likeness to Patrick Macnee is excellent, although if I’m being really picky the head looks to me to be ever so slightly too big for the body.

Mrs Peel is dressed in her signature all leather outfit, and carries a very nicely detailed gold coloured revolver.

How the doll’s likeness compares to Diana Rigg is debatable, but it’s unmistakably Mrs Peel.

The dolls have fully articulated bodies, although I’d recommend care when bending some of the joints, especially the ankles on Steed, which might need a little warm water treatment.

The set also comes with two tiny drinks glasses and a bottle of Champagne. Closer inspection of the label reveals a little in-joke; The label says it’s from vineyard ‘63, and signed Stephen Walker. Stephen, of course ran Product Enterprise, now Sixteen 12, and I believe was born in 1963!

As usual from Product Enterprise, the packaging is visually attractive and well designed. The ‘Avengers’ typeface is what was used on the fourth season, and the first filmed episodes.

To sum up, the set is a fine piece of retro Avengers merchandise, and certainly captures the essence of that Steed + Peel pairing.

In part 2 I’ll take a look at the Product Enterprise Steed & Peel colour season dolls.

CHRISTMAS CRAFTS: WE HAD IT NAILED!

Christmas in the Sixties always stretched my artistic skills. Art was big on Christmas morning and the weeks that followed.

For a start there was that old chestnut Painting by Numbers by brands like Junior Artist. Initially these were pictures of mountains, owls and deer but gradually as TV took over our lives the pictures on offer got more exciting, Thunderbirds being the peak. I still see old Painting by Numbers sets at car boots and in charity shelves but alas nothing TV-related. Here's one I clocked online.

Less TV-based were the craftier gifts my Mum and Dad got me. One I recall was a nail and string affair. It came with a block of wood, on which you hammered the small nails and then strung the string around them in pre-set shapes like owls, deer [yes, more of them!], stars and circles. Good fun as far as I recall. My efforts may have even got hung up in the house not too far from the Vernon Ward flying geese! Here's one I saw on Ebay.

Brass rubbing was another plunge into art meets craft. I think the set contained some pencils and graphite blocks for rubbing across a knight in armour on, yes, another block of wood. Again, lots of fun and it rubbed off on me as later on when I was a young Dad we took our daughter brass rubbing too. I seem to remember coins gave the best results, rubbings of the faces of old coins. Here's a typical Knight I rubbed a lot.

Calligraphy was an early Seventies sensation. Their seemed to have been a general fascination with pens all round. Felt pens in huge wide tins and cases, multi-headed ball-points and Parker fountain pens [I bet we all had one of those!]. 

I remember getting a big set of calligraphy pens one Christmas. The cigar-grip pens had nibs of varying shapes and thicknesses to offer the would-be scribe all manner of lines and flourishes. I must have written my name a hundred times on the special paper that came with that set, each attempt becoming lost in a storm of inky swirls. Seeing this on Etsy, I honestly think its the set I had.

There were other even craftier presents from my Parents in the early Seventies. Macramé, Batik, knot-craft, matchstick models and candle-making. But none of these really lit my bushel and it was always the more toy-based art stuff that really caught my eye: Colour Wheels, Colour Witch, Hammer Tap Pictures [with tacks and tiles but I forget the name], Paint Swirl [it wasn't called that either] and king of the castle, Mist-O-Matic, which I absolutely adored.

A sort of table-top spray shop for making cards and pictures with showers of paint, I spent hours creating masterpieces of mist that year in the fairy-lit past. My favourite was the brand's own Santa Christmas card design, which I must have made for my entire family!

I own very little from my childhood, so I find what I once had second-hand. Luckily I found a boxed Mist-O-Matic at a car boot around 1990 - pictured above - and I've kept hold of it ever since. One day I will replace the paint and have another go, but in the meantime pictured below is the Santa design as it appeared on Denis Fisher's leaflet. Seeing it again, it feels like yesterday.

Do you remember any of these arty items readers? What crafty arty stuff you get?

LIKE PEAS IN A POD

Watching Star Wars A New Hope again with Junior I was struck how similar the R2D2 escape pod was to something else in my mind.

This.

The Aries 1B from 2001.

Turns out they're completely different!

Can you think of any other pod craft like these?

SUNDAY'S LEGEND TV FILM LISTING

Here's the TV listing for the UK's Legend channel on SUNDAY 8th January. Will you be watching any of these films? Have you seen any?

3.00 PM
PRIMAL FORCE

Malicious monkey business starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy). A troubled, yet expert, guide is called in to lead a rescue when a plane crashes on a Mexican island populated by mutant baboons.

4.50 PM
APE VS MONSTER

Catastrophic creature feature. A scientific experiment goes horribly wrong, leading to a clash between a giant ape and an enormous Gila monster - with the future of mankind in question.

6.40 PM
EYE OF THE BEAST

Tentacled terror with James Van Der Beek. A scientist studying a drop in the fish population discovers the locals are disappearing as well - and there's something terrifying in the water.

8.30 PM
THE TWILIGHT ZONE

Series 1, Episode 3

A gunslinger hopes to restore his former glory when he finds a magic potion, but the effects are not what he expected.


9.00 PM
TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS

Eerie horror anthology with Donald Pleasence. A psychiatrist recounts four disturbing cases to a colleague, from a boy with an imaginary tiger to a cannibal luau organised by a literary agent.

10.50 PM
HORROR HOSPITAL

Horror comedy with Michael Gough. A disillusioned singer is persuaded to take a break at a health farm, but soon discovers that his fellow guests all have identical scars on their foreheads.