alphadrome's treasures: moonships and moon rangers

Like an old stack of TV21's, Brian Haye's fabulous Alphadrome website never ceases to amaze me! Whenever I read it another handful of gems surface!

Recently I browsed a few of its depths again and found the following treasures:

Hong Kong Space Toys: there is a fabulous thread about Hong Kong plastic featuring lots of the X-series of rockets and spaceships as well as LP's cool Space Blimp on page 2.

Under The Radar: a wonderful short thread from 2004 about the Moonships no less. ZZRobot pictures his Century 21 Moonship and box [look for the hot link] years before it appeared on the blog here!

Dealer Catalog 1969 - 1970 M W Kasch: again, a fantastic thread from 2004, four years before the blog started, about this US toy catalogue from 1969 - 70. Of great interest to me are the Moonship and the Moon Ranger entries.

The Moonship shown appears to be the white UK version rather than the green US version. The name 'moonship' concurs with this as does the use of the model number 6801 in the catalog notes below it [the 1969 Ahi catalog I blogged yesterday doesn't mention the model number]. 

Sold as either a Full Carton or BK. Carton whatever that means? [the flag sticker on the ship's side sort of looks like the Union Jack but its so unclear I can't really say].

The Moon Ranger is fascinating as it appears in its own grassy diorama and was sold in bulk in packs of 12 [I assume PK. means pack but no idea if a carton is bigger than a pack!]. The model numbers do not relate to either the UK Century 21 or US Tarheel versions so it could be either.

Chinese Rare Moonship: again another thread from the Moonship King ZZRobot, this time bang up to date this month about the tin moonship from China. I have had a loose one for twenty years but never owned a box. 

We've featured the box before but it's always a revelation to see how old this toy actually is as the box is dated 1965. That's a whole 4 years before the 2 plastic versions were released in 1969 and was clearly their source.

Perry Mohney Collection: check out the nice clear USA flag decal on this Ahi Moonship. Look for the entry April 9th [this year]. Check out Perry's entire collection whilst your at it. Simply breathtaking!

If you haven't checked out Alphadrome then do so now!

ahi azrak hamway super rocket plane appears in 1969 catalogue

Years ago we were hot on Moonships here at Moonbase.

They were a blog legend after all.

Its been a while since reporting anything about them but just this week I saw an old toy catalogue with, yes, one in!

Its the US version by ahi, the Super Rocket Plane and the catalogue's date of 1969 gives us at least one year we know the toy was in the shops.

The wording appears to be " 2869 Giant Frict. Super Rocket Plane, window packaged, 72 pcs ...?". I can't read the final bit. It looks like the price.

A few things spring to mind about this. Its clearly a trade catalogue and not a public one given that 72 rocket planes were sold as a bulk buy. 

The reference number 2869 does not refer to the model number on the base of the toy [below], which remains a mystery, though it is the same on the UK version of the Moonship by Century 21.

The final thing is the phrase window packaged. Up to press I had thought that this toy came in a windowless box given the nature of the box top flat scan I saw in a book years ago [below]:

So if this ahi box had a window [like the Century 21 version it must be said] then what did it look like?  Was the picture above that I had assumed was the box top actually the box rear? Anyone any idea?

For comparison here's the UK Century 21 Moonship and window box.

Anyone waTching angelby?

Me n Missus moonbase are enjoying a Swedish tv series called angelby at the mo. We're six episodes into the twelve, so half way.

It's very mystical and mythological. It reminds me a little of that other Nordic fantasy series. Jordskott.

A mix of Children of the Stones and the Wicker Man so far.

Has anyone else seen Angleby?

toys international july august 1969: launch of century 21 toys lunar climber and moonship

I  found these in my blog archive. Featured before but not together. I think the two pages are part of the same article.

Note that the Lunar Climber is mistakenly [but intriguingly!] linked to Project SWORD in the top page text.

Note also that in 1969 the idea of 'SWORD collectors' was already around!

MEXICAN GOLDEN MOLAB

Just seen this on Ebay from just over a year ago, a Mexican golden Molab -style model.

Besides being golden, it looks different to the normal R&L Space Age Moon Car that came with Sugar Smacks in Europe and Australia.

Can anyone say for sure if its different or are they the same?

bad monday at work?

Yep, if you still work then Mondays are officially rubbish!

The weekend is over in a flash and the dreaded start to the working week begins again before you can say Thank God Its Friday!

So, if you ran Monday nights what would you offer us to cheer us all up? A film? A game? A Meal? All of the latter? What?

C'mon readers, what would be the perfect Monday evening after a bad day at work?

rubber warriors

Setting sail into the choppy waters of cyber auctions often brings nothing ion the nets but now and then I bag a few morsels.

The carded vending toys above are all soft rubber versions of out friends the LP astronauts and the LP aliens. They call them Star Warriors.

Over in Japan the Glicos keeo on coming and I thought I saw a green Moon Bus in this lot but no its a train. the blue spacecraft front left looks a bit like the cab at the head of the Nuclear Ferry toy.

scratchbuilding the project sword toy moonbase playset: one final picture

It started with the above red pictures in the Project SWORD Official Manual.

 By way of rounding off my project here's a final image of the scratch built Moonbase Playset with a little background added by Bill.

Hope you like it.