TERRANOVA47'S GARAGE HEAVEN!

Ed is very tidy. Here is today's look in my garage!

Some mess is me looking for things this morning, but sadly the boxes continue to multiply regardless of what has been culled!

Terranova47

USA

FRUIT FLEET 2023

 Years ago Wotan candied our peel with his amazing Swizzels Space Fleet 2000 posts. 

These connectable sweet-filled spaceships were a sugary revelation to me and like an Uncle Joe's Mint Ball have slowly melted in my brain ever since.

I was only recently thinking about Bill's most classic of connected fleet shots ...

What a thing of beauty and a whole lotta sherbert!

I've been looking for something similar this morning.

The odd sighting of CD 2000 Space Fleet in far-off America raised my pulse.

Searching for modern equivalents finds less exciting heaps though ...

But the most similar bundle currently around maybe these

sherbert-filled plastic fruit!

These five-a day even have the same eye-hole stopper as Space Fleet!

Or without, as you wish!

These bad boys are in stock in many online sweet shops!

But can they be connected like a fruit fleet 2023?

IT'S CHEST-POUNDING STUFF!

Woodsy,

Here's the first set of my Kong images. This Roaring Kong measured 10 1/2"H head-to-toe. While it was a terrific articulated figure with a really nice battery operated roaring feature, I just had to sell it off. It was w-a-y too large for my liking. My dino's tend towards the smaller vintage Marx, MPC and others with a few slightly larger ones from Safari, CollectA, et al.

From Vegas Skull Island

Ed

KEV'S S.H.A.D.O CABINET

Hi,

Always looking for better ways to display my stuff. I was struggling to find a way to show my Konami stuff. I finally hit on the idea of these stainless steel bathroom cabinets. I added extra shelves made from acetate sheets and used paint stripper to remove the mirrors from the doors, to just leave it as plain glass. They are light, strong and the models fit perfectly!

Convenience!

Kevin

AURORA MAN FROM UNCLE KITS BY PAUL ADAMS

With the recent sad passing of David McCallum, I thought a Man From U.N.C.L.E. tribute might be in order. So here is an overview of the two Aurora kits based on the TV series, with a more detailed look at each of the kits to follow.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) TV series ran from 1964-68. It starred Robert Vaughn as American secret agent Napoleon Solo, and British actor David McCallum as his Russian partner Illya Kuryakin; with Leo G. Carroll as their boss Alexander Waverly.

The show was famous for its many secret agent gadgets, and the special guns carried by both U.N.C.L.E. agents, and the minions of their regular adversary Thrush. They even had a special Piranha car, which was kitted by AMT.

The show ran for four seasons, and was such a hit that the Aurora Plastics Corporation decided to produce a pair of kits depicting the lead actors. These were kits 411 and 412, which were only available 1966-68, and were never re-issued.

The Box Art Den has a good collection of Aurora catalogues, but care needs to be taken as some are foreign issues, and the prices can vary.

https://boxartden.com/collections/gallery/index.php/Vintage-Model-Kit-Catalogs-1950-1999/Aurora

The two MFU kits were first shown in the 1966 Aurora catalogue, illustrated with simple line drawings, and priced at 98 cents each. The 1967 Edition had cropped versions of the box art, but the price was now $1.00.

The Box Art Den has a Canadian edition of the 1968 catalogue, and the kits were priced at $1.30 in Canada. They were not included in the 1969 catalogue, and that was the end of these kits.

One odd point is that both models are described on the box tops as The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but the actual character names are only mentioned in the fine print underneath.

The kits were sold separately, but the bases were designed to interlock, and show the pair in action, in a typical scene from the TV series. Napoleon Solo is vaulting over a wall, gun in hand; while Illya Kuryakin crouches behind a pillar, pistol at the ready.

The actual figures were fairly simple kits, with the Dimensional Backgrounds adding considerably to the parts count. On the back of the wall sections were copyright notices for both Aurora Plastics Corp. 1966, and M.G.M. Inc, with their copyright date in Roman numerals - MCMLXVI, and the U.N.C.L.E. globe logo.

The box art for both kits was done by Mort Kunstler, today a renowned artist of historical subjects. He did a number of other box tops for Aurora, covering various kit types.

Aurora Model Kits by Thomas Graham gives the scale of the kits as 1/12th, while Scalemates says 1/8th. Aurora do not give the scale, either on the boxes, or on the instruction sheets, as far as I can see.

Four photographs from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

ED'S CAVE

“If you have to ask, you’ll never know. If you know, you need only ask.”

I used to be able to move freely in here.

From Vegas Hogwarts

Ed

CALLING OCCUPANTS

Its always good to see some Project SWORD and relatives on surfin' forays. Here's an old chum, the TOMY Interplanetary Space Rocket, complete with parachute, a forerunner of the Project SWORD Apollo Saturn toy.

Seen on Yahoo Japan.

Have you anything like this?

MAJOR MATT MASON: OUR MAN IN PASTE

 For the kid who had everything from the worlds of Major Matt Mason ...

.... Major Matt Wallpaper!

I mean, Wow! Who wouldn't have wanted this on their wall back in 1967! I seem to recall I had antique cars but this would have been much better! A major step forward!

Our very own budding astronaut in Finland, Commander Arto Aldrin, is now the proud owner of this piece of Matt Mason history. Suffice to say Arto is excited as it wends a merry voyage to Helsinki Base all the way from the States.

Wall to wall fun or what!

[The picture is from the Ebay seller, toyscout57 of NY, who has sold 14 pieces of this marvellous MMM wallpaper]