It's Kapow TV!

https://youtu.be/vmVE_Z2aXJA?si=SOpXimkmAlkTf6XT

Holy Bat Channel!

MJ

Southcoast Base

Homeward Voyage

We're onboard at Rotterdam Europoort.

15 hour overnight voyage to come.

Next stop Hull tomorrow morning.

Sleep tight!

New Teeth on the National Health .....

We've always been a two Kenner Alien household. I was aware of the toy through a photo in Starlog magazine, but it was never generally available in Australia.

My father bought me one on a trip through Singapore. My life partner Marilyn bought hers at The Land Beyond Beyond a specialty comic store in Sydney, before we had even got together!

While hers remained in it's original box, mine went adventuring and somewhere along the way, lost his transparent brain case.

I'd tried 3D scanning Marilyn's, but my technology wasn't up to it at that point.

Anyway, I recently sold the unfinished parts of my Lost in Space Robot to an avid collector who will lovingly restore it. He took the grand tour of our secret mountain hideaway and his eyes instantly locked on to Marilyn's Alien sitting in it's box, high on her shelves.

He couldn't resist asking asking her if she'd consider parting with it and a unedifying but friendly round of haggling ensued.

He ended up securing a new item for his collection for A$1500.

As she was pulling the box down and cleaning it up (I'd forgotten the toy came with it's own mini poster) she discovered there were two brain cases inside. My Alien's one wasn't lost at all!

Yesterday I gave him a good clean and reattached his brain with a few blobs of black tac. Then for good measure, I repainted his outer set of teeth.

The original vacuum metallised ones had evaporated over the decades, but a quick lick 

of Green Stuff World Chrome paint has returned him to indistinguishable dental glory!

Here he is in my home cinema with his more

 detailed NECA cousin.

Happy endings all round!

Looey

Oz Base

Landmarks - The Heller Eiffel Tower

I recently visited a toy shop I seldom get to, mainly because they rarely have anything of interest. But on this occasion, they had a single Heller kit - the Eiffel Tower (or Tour Eiffel in French), which I quickly added to my collection.

I have not seen any Heller kits in New Zealand for many years, except at fairs. So this was a very special kit, and fits in nicely with my Landmarks of the World articles.

This is one of at least three Eiffel Tower kits that have been made over the years. By the French firm S.E.L.F.E. in the 1950s, which was also issued by Pyro in the USA, and Eaglewall in Britain; by Revell Germany in the 1980s; and by Heller.

All are in different scales. Here is a quick look at the various Landmarks of the World Kits.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2023/09/landmarks-of-world-overview-of-model.html

Work began on the Eiffel Tower in 1887, and it was completed in 1889, for the centenary of the French Revolution. Despite being unpopular in some quarters at first, it is now probably the most famous structure in France.

The Heller kit is the smallest, and most recent, of the Eiffel Tower kits. It was released in the 1990s, so around the centenary of the Tower, and the second centenary of the French Revolution.

It is 1/650th scale, and stands 477 mm tall when complete, and 188 mm along each base.

There are 65 parts, in sand-brown plastic, and a small decal sheet. There are four identical sprues of base and tower parts; four sprues of central parts; and one sprue of top parts.

One odd point is that some of the kit boxes say only 57 parts, but I do not know if the kit was modified at some stage, and extra parts added.

There are also six small pots of paint, and a tube of Superglue in this version. The box top mentions a brush, but this was missing from my example.

Previous versions of this kit have come either without paints and cement; or with what looks to be tinlets of Humbrol paint, and normal polystyrene cement.

This kit has appeared in several different boxes over the years, and here are a couple of further examples. It has also carried several different

 numbers, including 61201, 81201, and 57201.

Six photographs in total, four are mine, and two from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

MY FIRST GREAT DEAL: THE CURSE OF THE COBRAS AND MORE!

 

Cor! Seeing these instructions for IDEAL's Curse of the Cobras game took me right back to when I first started collecting old toys circa 1990. 

I bought this big boxed game from a work colleague, who's son was selling all his old toys. It was the first great deal I'd made and my colleague and her son were chuffed with the fifty pounds they got.

I got this game, two Dinky FAB1's, a ton of small plastic toys, some board games and a Green Hornet Black Beauty.

It set me off on the road I'm still on now 35 years later!

Alas, the Curse of the Cobras has long gone. I recall fixing some parts and printing out the instructions from the net, probably from Board Game Geek, which I used a lot back then. These are the scans from the time. Happy Days!

Do you remember your first great deal?

Mystery Motorbike

I saw this lot on auction ages ago and saved the snap because of that strange white torpedo like motorbike at the front. It has a blue rider and the number 9.

Anyone any idea what it is?

CAPTIONS NEEDED!

Caption Time! What are these two fellas saying?

S i l v e s t e r 1 9 8 3

Clearing out my Wife's parents' apartment has been a sobering and often sombre experience this past month.

I've personally known them since 1979, that's most of my adult life till they passed away. It's humbling to be the custodians of their entire life's purchases, belongings, heirlooms and clothes. There was and is so much of it.

Occasionally in all the shifting and sifting I stumbled on evidence of my own small part in their lives.

One such piece was this old games compendium. 

At first glance I didn't notice anything ...

but on closer inspection ....

There's my name and the year written by my Father in Law at the time. I was 22 and living in Germany with his daughter round the Corner from where they lived.  It was New Years Eve, Silvester, 1983 and we must have been playing board games as a family.

I was touched seeing it, a small something of me from my Father in Law so long ago.

I was there. Where were you readers?