MOONBASE CENTRAL

Friday, 24 October 2025

Galaxy 59

I love this Galaxy 59 cover art. Not sure who the artist is. The dark, light and shadowing is fabulous.

The spacecraft looks so familiar but I just can't put my finger on it.

You?

Collection X: The Ultimate Barn Find

There was an interesting snippet on the BBC news this morning about a Collection X.

With such an intriguing name and the phrase 'barn find' being used I watched it.

I thought it might have been a massive collection of space toys but it turned out to be a huge group of old steam locomotives hidden away in barns for fifty years.

Once the property of the late railway super collector Peter Rampton, part of the Freemans catalogue family, the trains are now being sold off and going to various rail museums including the Vale of Rheidol.

I'm not a big train enthusiast but I can appreciate the excitement the release of this lifetime's collection is generating.

There's a book on Collection X too, Narrow Gauge Enigma.

Have you a rail museums or historic railway near you?

Toby Twirl and his Helicopter

I was first introduced to Toby Twirl books by reader Terranova47 last year.

The stories are wonderful and the artwork by E. Jeffrey are exquisite and reminds me of an even sweeter Lucie Atwell.

Terranova47 recently sent me this:

Hello Woodsy

Here are some of the books that were discontinued when Noddy became more popular.

Toby and the Dillypuff train was on the blog last year:

MOONBASE CENTRAL: THE DILLYPUFF: TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION! https://share.google/dWhUo98q2TqzSPllz

Terranova47

NYC

Remembering Toby I was excited this month when I picked up this gorgeous annual for a pound. There's Dillypuff the train on the cover too.

Looking for more Adventures I was really taken by this quaint cover from another book, in particular the cute bubble copter. I wonder if there were any toys made?

It rang a bell and I then thought of that old East German TV animation called Sandmännchen or the Sandman. He had a few helicopters with big fronts like these two.

An even closer Toby Twirl copter lookalike is this 1960's Smoky Bear helicopter made by multiple Toymakers (they of Golden Astronaut)

A final blister cockpit is this lovely Italian Carabinieri job. I love it

Terranova47 recently sent me this too:

Hello Woodsy

I found my copy of a Toby Twirl 'fan' price guide published quite a while ago.

The prices quoted are for 'mint' copies and at one time that may have held true though these days those of us that knew the character from childhood are getting thin on the ground.

I hope you have read the book by now and hopefully enjoyed the charm of times past.

Last weekend I dug out my Toby Twirl annuals and discovered that my copy of the one you have had a dust jacket.

I scanned the dust jacket to show you the flaps. The front one talks about the annual the back one promotes Noddy, the stinking little wooden boy that replaced Toby in the publishers line-up.

This was the last Toby Book published in 1958, the publisher dropped him in favour of Noddy who appealed to girls as well as boys.

Here are two scans from the 1956 annual which reflect the delightful art style of these books.

Terranova47

USA

Have you any Toby Twirl memories or memorabilia readers?

Thursday, 23 October 2025

Final Tap

It's with a certain degree of sadness that I've just shut down my old Lenovo laptop for the last time.

Retiring to the knackers yard of tech, this laptop, my fifth, has served me well for 10 years as the main writing console for the blog, my last three books and my ebaying up till about this Spring when it started playing up.

Held together with gaffer tape and sporting the soon-to-be redundant Windows 10, it began failing to connect to the internet around April this year, the start of its swan song really.

I had to switch to doing everything on my mobile phone, everything except creating books on Blurb, which remained the sole activity I still did, albeit a huge struggle, on my old Lenovo.

Today I cut the cord completely and transfered photos, documents, everything from my dying laptop to an external hard drive, ready for the arrival of a brand new laptop, with Windows 11, this evening.

Yes, a new dawn of fresh computing begins at Moonbase and after some editing on the new machine, there'll soon be news of a new publication by Bill and myself.

Have you got a new computer, laptop or iPad readers? Or is it old? Or do you just use your phone?

🦢

Lance's SpaceX and Roxy Haul

Hi Woodsy!

So recently I won an auction that included 5 Spacex cardbacks ........

and a lot of various space vehicles.

I was intrigued as it had an alternate color of the Nova Rocket in green (pics to come later in the week) and an alternate color of the Reconnaissance 2.

Turns out the R2 is not an alternate color but an actual different take on the Reconnaissance 2. This one is actually made by Roxy Toys. It is marked underneath with MADE IN HONG KONG, Roxy Toys, and a NO.2006. It stands a little bit taller than the original most due to the slightly more robust gear.

Big differences are the back of the missile launcher is molded into the lower body instead of the glued on piece of the original.

The lower half of the body is also a thinner shape and the very back of it is angled. It has two engines in each wing instead of one and a fifth in the center of the body.

While this brings each ship to 5 engines, they are not in the same locations and actually mesh together when parked back to back.

Lance

USA

Skipton Bits

A few things caught my eye on a recent mooch in the Charity shops of Skipton

This unusual picture could well have been a depiction of my fave song by Canadian rockers Rush, By Tor and The Snow Dog. It's an epic guitar battle between good and evil and even introduced me a new word as a young teenager, Tobes as in the Tobes of Hades. I still don't know what a tobe is! Ha ha.

Have you heard the song?

This implement took me back to my Mum's kitchen in the Sixties. I showed it my older sister and she said it was a palette knife. So readers, myself being a useless cook, what do you do with it?

Another blast from my parents home, we had a group of these Masai paintings on the walls. Very stylised and of their time, I'm not sure they'll fly now.

In Oxfam books I clocked the original novel, which I inspired a brilliant film I love, The Riddle of the Sands.

Starring the late Matthew McCorkindale and Michael York, it's the story of duck hunting in the Friesian Isles at the turn of the Century. Sounds boring but it isn't. Those ducks are packin'!

These caught my eye.

I've seen something odd-looking before like the Vaderesque troops on the Cataclysm cover, this little pot astronaut and helmeted spaceman in Kitaharia's fantastic Yesterday's Toys.

I was thinking of another duck-faced ceramic astronaut too, but which book is it in? To follow.

Another amazing Vargo Staten cover, that spaceship could almost be the Project SWORD Task Force 2!

Anything here you like readers?

Wednesday, 22 October 2025

Car Boot Wednesday

The Missus and me had a car boot stall this morning at the local sale. We did OK and sold quite a lot of unwanted bits and bobs. Same again, next week, the last of the year before Winter arrives.

As usual, as there were two of us, we were each able to have a wander and a rummage. I personally like lots of house clearance boxes (bit sad I know) to rifle through and here's my inexpensive £3 haul for ID'ing and fixing. Well, it keeps me off the streets!

See what you think. Anything you like?

Rear: 1984 MOTU Battle Bones, just missing the backbone pins.

LtoR: unknown clockwork doll, Mertrade van, unknown pirate, unknown Disner figures, Dr.Who Tardis salt and pepper pots, MASK bike copter, Thrushbuster spares, TAT truck, unknown Laurel and Hardy figs.