Is the Britain's Stargard Pilot Space Angel?

I saw this toy female space pilot figure from Britain's ...

... Based on the female pilot in the 1960's cartoon Space Angel seen here on this Transogram board game?

Waddaya think?

Barbie 1956 Corvette Collectors Set

Barbie – The Movie was a 2023 live-action film based on the Mattel doll line. Naturally, Mattel promoted it heavily, and there were die-cast models of the 1956 Chevrolet Corvette featured in the film, from Hot Wheels.

These came in various colours – pink, pale blue, and grey with flames. All were Mainline models, and sold in NZ for anywhere between $3.50 and $5 (£1.55 to £2.20).

There was also a boxed set with all three standard models, plus a special yellow version only available in this Collectors Set. Obviously, the collection was going to be a lot more than the combined price of four regular models.

I never saw this set in the shops, although I was looking out for it. There was an example at the most recent Auckland collectors fair, on a specialist Hot Wheels table – for $130 NZ.

That works out to £57.69, or $77.30 US. A lot more than I was willing to pay.

So it is not just vintage toys going for insane amounts of money. Even this 2023 Corvette set is heading in to the stratosphere.

Photograph from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Kev's Missing Nuclear Freighter

This is the specific SpaceX NFII variation that's missing from Kevin's collection.

Anyone got a spare one?

Parainen Nostalgia Museum, Finland

Recently we visited the Nostalgia Museum in Parainen, SW Finland. 

A young lad had amassed an impressive variety of vintage items for his private collection on all fields of life, toys included.

 A grand day out!

Arto

Helsinki Base

Eko's of Spain

I love these little half-dome pocket games from EKO of Spain. There's something very space age about setting a game in a dome.

Have you anything like this? 

American Memories

The passing of another American icon of our childhoods, Jim Lovell, has made me nostalgic for some of the other Americans later in my life.

 Having been collecting toys since 1989 some of the places I visited Stateside have also gone. Here are just a few threads of gossamer to a lost American world.

Alphaville

Alphaville was a vintage toys and collectables store I visited with my Missus in New York City way back in 2001 on my 40th birthday trip to the Big Apple.

The store was packed with fabulous mint and beautifully packaged toys and kitsch, a true Aladdin's cave. I was thrilled to be there having discovered them first as an online vintage toys shop, one of the earliest I can recall just as eBay was imported here from the States went live in the UK in 2000.

Remnants of Alphaville still exist online including the two gorgeous bits of artwork here, typical of the cool retro-lounge imagery of their website, a work of art in itself and a joy to browse. I really do miss Alphaville. It closed in 2010.

Toy Scouts Inc.

What can I say about Toy Scouts Inc? Only that their founder Bill Breugman single-handedly introduced me to a much wider world of vintage toys, than I hitherto knew about, in his fantastic  book from the early 1990's, Toys of the Sixties, which I bought in 1993.

Bill wrote the History of Aurora too, which I have, as well as publishing one of the seminal American vintage toy collecting magazines, Model and Toy Collector.

I used to subscribe to Bill's auction catalogue, the heart of Toy Scouts Inc., and the one or two copies I have are prized possessions, jam-packed as they are with delicious collectables years before eBay. I think Toy Scouts are sadly no more.

Midtown Comics

This was another place we visited in 2001 in NYC, a large and well-known comics shop. I was stunned by the amount of stock they had and came away with a beautiful modern Green Hornet lunchbox and repro Captain Action Green Hornet outfit, both items for my toy fair stall I had back then. 

I imagine, unlike the first two here, Midtown have gone from strength to strength given the popularity of comics and graphic novels.

Strand Bookstore

Again, in the January of 2001 the Missus and me spent a happy hour in this fabulous New York book shop, which I seem to recall being not too far from the business district of Wall Street and the ill-fated World Trade Center.

It was - and may well be still - a superb bookstore and the section on collecting toys a real treat. I was a fan of John Toyzilla Marshall back then so jumped at the chance of increasing my books by him, namely Comic Heros of the 1960's, a tome I still love to leaf through.

I hope the Strand has thrived and thrived.

Happy days

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Do you know any of these readers? 

Will, James and Jim Lovell

I was so sorry to hear about the passing of Jim Lovell.

When me and my boy James met him many years ago we found him to be a lovely man … very chatty and happy to pose for pictures and autographs.

He really did have "The right stuff!" 

Will O

UK

JIM LOVELL 1928-2025

 Sad to read that astronaut, Jim Lovell  has passed away at the age of 97.

Although he is best remembered as the commander of Apollo 13, to me I remember him more as one of the crew members of Apollo 8, the first manned spacecraft to reach, and orbit the Moon in December, 1968.

As a youngster, I still remember watching on television, the moment Apollo 8 capsule landed in the ocean.

Early the following year, I also remember  seeing an offer in TV21 from Crosse & Blackwell, and sending away for 4 colour prints  featuring moments, including the well remembered 'Earthrise' photo, taken by William Anders ,from the Apollo 8 mission.

Our sincere condolences to his family and friends.