IN THE VACUUM OF JAPAN'S PLASTIC

Hi Woodsie as warned, the Skullbrain Vintage Japanese Adverts blog is an irresistible force and I've quickly slipped over the Event Horizon!

As I hurtle towards the singularity of Japanese Popular culture I can still send messages back to you in the real world.

This page is interesting, vacuum formed masks of various Anime characters-but wait! I think I recognise that mouse!

Cheers, 

Looey!

Oz

ARTO'S ROY ROGERS LUNCH BOX!

What brightened my Sunday was this surprise find at the Ice Hall flea market. Something completely different, eh? 

A Roy Rogers & Dale Evans RR Chow Wagon Thermos Lunch Box from 1958 in an excellent condition, amidst all the Nineties' Action Man figures! 

It even had the Macy's price tag of $2,59 still on it! The stories it could tell about its journey to Finland!

Arto

Helsinki Base

Do you like it?

REVENGE OF THE JAPANESE TOY ADVERTS! BEWARE!

I've been slowly browsing The Moog's vast Skullbrain Forum archive of Japanese toy catalogue pages and I'm officially addicted. I can't stop. I need to eat though!

I shall hand over to you readers, 76 pages of Japan's finest. Be warned, you may never stop!

http://skullbrain.org/bb/index.php?threads/revenge-of-the-retro-japanese-toy-adverts.48572/

What do you think!

WILL'S CORGI ROCKETS SKYPARK

Re. Bill's Corgi Rockets, I loved my Skypark toy when I was a kid. I do remember it took some setting up though. I remember pretending it was like the vertical car park in that Thunderbirds episode, although it's nothing like it!

Will O

UK

Get yours out again Bill!

BLAKES 7: COSMIC KEVIN'S HAWK

Hi,

Managed to snaffle this incredibly rare, carded Blake's 7 toy. Even when I was a serious collector, I never managed a carded one.

It's all out there somewhere,

Kevin

UK

STOPPIN BY ON NOPPIN

 After a long pause I've been browsing Noppin again, the Japanese marketplace.

I used to buy loads of small Project SWORD miniatures from Noppin years ago but I'm unsure if Westerners can buy anymore. Certainly Yahoo Japan stopped trading with many countries.

Anyway, I've saved some snaps from my latest gander of mostly Glico vehicles and rockets, Glico being a candy company, the premiums from which are massively collected in Japan so there are thousands of them on Noppin. Searching can be difficult so I use terms like Glico Showa, Glico Universe, Glico toy, Glico Thunderbirds and so on. Have a go!

Speaking of which, here's Glico's Thunderbirds Radar Car, which I first saw in 1996 in Dennis Nicholson's majestic Andersonalia Book.

and the UFO SHADO2

I wondered if this might be a UFO car too?

I liked this one as well.

We've seen this before being mislabelled as UFO elsewhere online but its still nice.

Wombat'ish?

and occasionally other stuff pops up in a Glico bundle ... can you see a radar?

Here it is. SpaceX Mobile HQ?

The following ships are all a mystery to me, part of the vast Japanese universe of Manga and Anime I imagine.

Any ideas readers?

A RISKY GAME

Here is an interesting You Tube video. Instead of playing the boardgame Risk on a normal board, this group decide to turn the board in to a three-dimensional map. Using texture paints, and gel for the seas. The results look really good, although it might be a bit difficult to actually play on.

A fun project for a rainy weekend maybe ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8GQT5zaJ_s

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Wherefore Art Thou?

I have had a nice little run on vintage diecasts this week, which started with this pair of Corgi Rockets. The Alfa Romeo Pininfarina  P33 and Mercedes C111 came in at a princely 99p for both and are in remarkably good shape for their age. The deep violet gloss on the Alfa has always been a favourite of mine and this model is in considerably better shape than my original from the seventies. 

The Mercedes is one of the Rockets range that passed me by, as Corgi released almost all the cars in the budget Corgi Juniors line, so I got the cheaper version instead. I doubled up with the Juniors version of the Alfa, which came in a rather uninspiring flat blue. 

The trick with Corgi Rockets was the Golden Tune Up Key, which came with the car and allowed the entire chassis to be removed, so if axles became bent or wheels scuffed, it was a quick fix to replace either the axle or the entire chassis with a quick twist of the key. Each key had a small paper nameplate attached, relative to particular car, but the actual keys were identical.

 Corgi also used the Alfa Romeo in their standard line of cars, with Whizzwheels for a sportier look. The Whizzwheels version is only slightly larger, but has increased detailing.

The Alfa was a favourite for me from the outset as for years it functioned as a poor mans Swingin' Wing from the Hot Wheels line. Although the redline car was entirely fictional, Alfa did produce the P33 as a full size concept car.