MANDARAKE: SF MAGIC

 

A browse around the Japanese site Mandarake is always fun.

The amount of SF in there is just staggering.

These are just a taste of the old SF kits on the site.

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/?lang=en

PINKY AND THE SPACEX

I love this little Pinky and the Brain space toy I saw online.

It could easilly be a Triang SpaceX miniature or an Apollo Moon Exploring addition 

.... until you see Pinky sprawled out in the cockpit... or is the Brain?

Have you got a mini toy that would sit well with Triang SpaceX or Golden Astronaut toys?

Situation Contained?

My new Sea Train container - top right - got me thinking.

Could it be related to this? What do you think?

*

Solved by Anonymous!

1977 Corgi Super Scania it is!

Thanks Bill! Sikorsky medic attachment.

And Bill ID'd this! The red carrier goes into the container so it can be lifted off by crane. Of course it does! 

So, that leaves the orange stretcher and the big red truck canopy to still ID.

Ideas?

Satellite of Love

Some things a worth the wait.

Even a long one.

This one took me more than a decade!

The Satellite money box was made by a Finnish money box manufacturer MK-tuote in the early 1960's and was probably one of their first designs. 

Even though there are at least five colour variants and an illustrated box it came in, they very rarely come up for sale. 

Complete examples are even more hard to find as the soft plastic antennas are detachable and there is a separate clear plastic display stand too. 

The orb measures 9 cm in diameter.

Hope you like it.

Arto

Helsinki Base

Captain Scarlet Mystery Jet Solved!

Woodsy,

Regarding that silver "Captain Scarlet Mystery Jet" you found on Noppin in 2012 - if it isn't somehow related to this 1966 Midori Super Arrow, I'll turn in my Project SWORD badge!

Rob C

USA

THE GREEN BERET TOY LUGER

The US Green Berets were formed in 1952, and are a specialised commando force. So, how likely is it that members of a post-WW2 United States Army unit are going to be carrying WW1-vintage German automatic pistols ?

Those in the toy industry seem to think they are standard issue. These two target sets are by different manufacturers, but both include a dart-firing Luger.

The boxed U.S. Special Forces Green Beret Target set includes a yellow plastic Luger, and a metal target. According to the back of the box it is made by Palmer Plastics, of Brooklyn, New York.

The smaller, carded Green Beret Pistol & Target Set has a cardboard target, printed with what look to be scenes from the Vietnam War. The black plastic Luger is marked Park Plastics, which was based in Linden, New Jersey.

Surely a Colt .45 automatic would have been more suitable for a US Army unit? Why a Luger?

Four photographs from Worthpoint

Paul Adams from New Zealand

The Mystery of the Secret Gaskett

Arto's Latin place-holder story reminded me of another mystery from way back when Moonbase first kicked off in 2008/09.

Here it is, as solved in 2011. Enjoy! 

Back in October 2009 reader Ferryman flagged up a gasket mystery relating to a strange card template inside the New Flying Saucer at the bottom of the above picture. The gasket was sort of cat faced and pictured a speedboat in blue, black and white. The identity of this has remained a mystery.....

Until now! 

I was recently lucky enough to acquire a new T boat, the Dolphin Cruiser and lo and behold, the box art includes, you've guessed it, the blue, black and white speedboat picture on two sides! 

Mystery solved!

Below you can see the two pictures close up.

Did these card gaskets appear inside all three types of New Flying Saucer: T, JR21 and the German Welt Erkunder?

Das Haul Up Close

 Here's a closer look at yesterday's German car boot €10 bargain haul of old cars and VHS.

Lots of SIKU, some Matchbox and a Japanese Hinshei crane.

The SIKU vehicles, like the yellow tow truck and the orange trailer, are really solid. All of them say made in Germany so are post-unification in 1989. Exact dates I'm unsure of.

I love the SIKU ADAC Prufdienst trailer, in which cars drive through to be checked! The Crane to the right is Japanese, my first MINI Power vehicle.

Here's some odds n odds too. Apart from the helicopter rotor I don't recognize any of the spare parts. You?

For the old big box* VHS videos I got - one of my collecting passions -  I chose this lovely 1880 cabinet in the flat to photograph them.

Eh voila!

I had thought they were all unrated, i.e. no age limit marked on them, which in the UK is known as pre- cert or pre-certificate and typically early to mid 1980's, but these German big boxes are all age rated. 

At this point I'm sure if unrated videos exist in Germany. Do they exist in your country readers? 

* Big box refers to the much bigger boxes of early VHS video cassettes from the 1980's. They can be solid plastic/ thick card or slightly padded plastic clamshells.

Have you got any readers?