Epoch Thunderbird 2 and Joe 90 Hanky!

Hi Woodsy

A month or so back on the MC blog you featured the Apollo Lunar Lander by Epoch and attached are images of their Thunderbird 2 version which sold for £52 plus a few pence recently on Buyee (as we don’t have access to Yahoo Auctions these days). No I did not make a bid for it though it was tempting.

I have never seen it but the Japanese Manga Comic has an advert page for a few Captain Scarlet items and a small image of the Spectrum Helicopter version of this toy is depicted.

Don’t know about you but as a young boy at Christmas I always along with the main present and Christmas Stocking stuffed with sweets used to get underwear and handkerchiefs. Can’t say I would have considered them presents at that time as they are not very playable.

Anyway this Christmas I have managed to procure a handkerchief that I am pleased to have and attach a picture!

Terry H.

Mars in an Afternoon

I recall watching George Pal's space epic 'Conquest of Space' years ago, which for the fifties, had amazing special effects. What chiefly caught my eye was the wonderful deep space vessel hanging in orbit near the space wheel. The craft is loosely based on Werner Von Brauns project for a manned mission to Mars and consisted of a huge booster section and a 'flying wing'. In Conquest, the central rocket fuselage detaches and returns to Earth,  but Von Brauns version made an atmospheric re-entry.

Collier's magazine covered Von Brauns Moon and Mars ships in exhaustive detail at the time, with lots of lavish illustrations by Chesley Bonestell.

Compared to the much later LEM, Von Brauns ships were massive multi-crewed beasts, with fuel tanks supported in a rigid framework. I had been toying with the idea of building a model of something in this style, and picked up the re-issue of the Lindberg Moonship kit.

However, when I was looking for a birthday present for my grandaughter and found a toy golf set with ping-pong balls in a handy carrier. Seeing it I immediately saw the potential for a Von Braun style model.

Using the container with the balls inside as the fuel tanks, I knocked up a space plane from kit parts and joined the two up.

The model sat on the shelf for a few days, but due to what seems to be an 'Interstellar' like gravitic anomaly - whereby everything in the man cave seems to end up falling on the floor - I dropped it and broke off one of the fins and the radar dish. It was consigned to the repair box for a few months, but yesterday, I found it again and effected a few repairs. A few new parts and a bit of heavy handed weathering and its on course for Mars once more!

Garden Trek

Hi,

As I am retired, I fulfilled my obligation to visit a garden centre this week. To my surprise, in their post Christmas sale, they had a large picture of a starfield, which actually lit up! It was meant for Christmas Village models but I thought it would be good for dioramas and it was cheap, so I bought it!

Anyway, here is the Galileo flying through it.

Happy gardening,

Kevin

Talking of Aurora!

My nephew sent me this stunning pic of a huge Aurora above his house on Orkney this week.

Wow! I've never seen the Northern Lights, not even this week when they were all over the UK! Doh! 

Have you? 

Legione Spaziale: What is that Plastic?

 

Legione Spaziale, it's a good looking old carded set. I saw it on an Italian auction. The plastic looks almost partly melted. What kind of plastic is that? Cheap? Recycled?

Mystery Figure

 

I saw this in Pocklington. Made in China, it's a new one on me. You?

Rob's Multiple Toymakers 100 Cars of the World

Woodsy,

Circa 1970, I ordered an item called "100 HO Scale Cars" from America's Hobby Center in New York City. For 99 cents plus shipping!

 Hoping they were discontinued EKO or VIKING automobiles, I was sorely disappointed when I received in the mail a bag filled with one-piece, brightly-colored plastic toy vehicles, labeled "100 Cars of the World", by Multiple Toymakers!

After I got over my initial disappointment, I learned to love these homely little toys, and painted them up to look as "realistic" as possible.

An eclectic mix of sports and utility vehicles, both contemporary and antique, the big downside to these models was the embossing of the vehicle name on the backside or trunk. I tried to file off the names on a couple of the vehicles, with disastrous results, so I left the rest intact.

Here are pix of some of the painted ones I managed to save. Crude, but useful for background settings. The photos of the original bagged item are from eBay.

Rob C

USA

Monster X Projector

 I thought this was so darn cool.

A vintage Japanese projector set.

Looks neat and tidy. 

And the film appears to be Ghidorah! 

What a set!