Ed's G.I. Joe Official Sea Sled and Frogman

Woodsy and Fellow Moonbasers,

I made a comment on a previous post that I had no photos of any of my childhood G.I Joe's, Stoney Smith's, or other action figures. 

A few days ago, Woodsy posed the question as to whether we had any diver figures. 

Well, coincidentally I came across this scan from Christmas of 1966 showing my G.I. Joe Official Sea Sled and Frogman (standing in front of it is my nephew in his cowboy outfit). 

While we didn't have a pool at our house, my dad did own a trailer home (caravan) on Shawano Lake, Wisconsin. 

It was there on the weekends that I could get the toys out and let them run to my heart's content.

 The Sea Sled worked pretty decent as I recall and the frogman was totally cool!

From Vegas Base

Ed

Garden Garrison

 Here's a garden gallery of my finished DIY Grenadier Guard cum Royal Canadian Mountie, together with the Blues and Royals.

Right boot generously donated by blog mate Tony K!

What do you think?

DIY Deep Sea Diver and Grenadier: getting Kitted Up

 Some more rough and ready fiddling tonight with two current Action Man DIY projects.

My Grenadier Guard make-shift SLR is getting a home-made bayonet; here stood up, glue drying it together. I added a string strap to the 'SLR', a re-shaped and re-painted modern machine gun.

The Grenadier bayonet got coloured up and attached and I began whittling some of the Deep Sea Diver accessories: lead half-boots, undersea hammer and the air gauge and pipes. The gauge needs painting. I'm getting ready for the buoy next and the sea dagger and sheath.

The helmet got a first lick of Humbrol metallic gold paint. I'm leaving the already-gold bauble itself alone. Several more coats to come on the rest. The big white knob is a mask over the tap, so it doesn't get a golding.

And so to the suit itself. Last night's tailoring wasn't up to muster at all so I started again, this time making the diver's outfit out of thin white plastic wrap used in packaging.

I cut out a basic shape and left the cotton suit on, as the wrap is semi-see through, not a great idea for a male diver facing sharks!

Using simple sellotape to join the seams the suit began to puff out and take shape. I added black shoes.

Happy with the baggy suit, I started work on the fella's belt, braces and lead weights and I added black ankle sleeves to create a boot look for the shoes.

Much to do tomorrow but for now I'm diving into bed! 

SATELLITES AWAY!

I noticed this old auction lot a while back. Lots to drool over here including the Beatles guitar, presumably by Selcol.

What really caught my eye was the X-shaped plastic multi-coloured satellite in the middle of the shot. It looks like its got a metal stud at the top.

Anyone recognise this toy?

ED'S HAMILTON INVADERS MOSQUITO JEEP #466-1

Woodsy and Fellow Moonbasers,

Unlike so many of the toys I've shared with you all, I actually had the Mosquito Jeep as a kid. 

It was my 11th birthday - sometime around 1885  (just kidding) - and to my recollection, my mother had gotten me two boxed Hamilton's Invaders playsets. 

I believe there were two sets, but maybe it was one of the bigger double sets - REMCO made quite a few. In any case, I ended up with the Mosquito Jeep, Hornet Helicopter, Horrible Hamilton (the big bug), one or two of the medium sized bugs, and a contingent of Invaders (soldiers). 

Fast forward a good many years and I am now an adult collector buying back my memories: in comes REMCO's Hamilton's Invaders! I started collecting these some years back but ever so slowly. From what I gather in the fb (Meta) groups is that these were very popular toys. 

Sooo many people have commented that they either had them or had friends or relatives that had them. This popularity is evident not only by the prices they command, but also by the overall poor condition generally present in the toys that are for sale. 

Nearly every single piece I own (except for the soldiers) has condition issues: broken/missing pieces, broken mechanism's, etc., but as my budget wouldn't allow for the high-quality goods, it's what I ended up with.

Now that I've finally taken these toys out for photography, I can see where the issues lie. For the most part, they display well and this Mosquito Jeep is no exception:

-The pull-string motor doesn't work, as is the case with most of these toys (imagine Junior yanking back on that string with all his might, plopping it down to have it crash into things, then picking it up and repeating over, and over, and over again! These toys weren't built for that kind of abuse).

-The plating is worn off

-The gun mount is loose such that it won't stay elevated

-The front wheel set is so loose it just falls off, necessitating careful handling

-There's a chunk of plastic broken off near the canopy hinge, allowing the canopy to fall off easily

-The driver is missing

-It was very dirty (although I cleaned it up a lot, it could use another round of cleaning).

...But other than that, it's fine! 

There were actually quite a few toys in this series and I didn't have them all as a kid, and I don't have them all now as a collector - but I'm working on it!

From Horrible Hamilton's Cave,

Ed

USA

Deep Sea Diver: At the Tailors

 Further progress on the helmet. All the shoulder plate 'rivets' are glued on. It's a bit front heavy. I'll wait till the whole outfit is done before I deal with that. Gold paint is on order to finish it next.

See what you think.

Some work has been done on the diver's suit. I used an old cotton shopping bag for material. Hmmm, could be a mistake.

I used double-sided tape to attach the two sides and then stitched round the edges. It's far too slim so I forcibly pulled the seams to make it baggier.

 

This dry run makes it clear that the rough suit is still not big enough. I will have to add a lot more bag.

Overall I'm about half way through the whole endeavour. 

Hopefully Action Man should be taking a bath by next weekend! 

My New Bran Bowl

My meagre but fun catch at the car boot, my first trip out in a week.

LtoR. Castle Bran bowl. Dr.Who mag free gift 2009. Silver ironing board cover. Modern Action Man.

The Bran bowl from Dracula's castle in Romania was a no brainer - or should that be branner! I was fascinated by comic ads for vials of Bran soil when I was a kid and now I have at least a bowl. You can guess what's going it in! And no, not bran!

Do you remember Dracula's soil in bottles?

The silver cover is for a future action man outfit. Can you guess?

The modern Action man will be my deep sea diver when I'm done. Those modern hands are WAY too big!

I also saw this Route 66 picture. What is that car? Anyone?

What are you up to today?

Stood By For Action!

I've just been in the garage looking for something completely unrelated and noticed these old magazines sat on top of a box. Engale Marketing's 'Action 21' magazine from 1988. A lavishly produced reprint of classic TV21 stories and additional material, in a recognisable TV21 format. I used to buy these everytime I saw them in my local comic shop and it's interesting to see the mention of Thinderbooks 2 opening in Preston (the main branch being Blackpool). David Nightingale ran Thunderbooks and Engale and were the premier source for all Anderson materials at the time.

Publication was as I recall, sporadic, but fairly regular and I have ten consecutive issues running up to October 1989. Did it carry on beyond that date? Am I missing further issues?