Firstly, a shout out to an old friend who found this for me... cheers buddy!
I bagged another classic '60s-early '70s vintage Hong Hong rack toy at its absolute mishmash best!
Firstly, the backing card is a gigantic 15 inches x 10 inches. It's illustrated with out of this world art, showing lots of Space stuff going on. 'The Cosmonaut's Set' was a curious marketing title, but I guess it sounded suitably futuristic to satisfy our younger selves.
The blue plastic WW2 Thompson, fired the ammo of the era, spring loaded sucker-darts. It has a wonderfully out of place wild west Indian Chief's head embossed on the white plastic butt... all a far cry from the sci fi ray gun depicted in the Space Patrol Cosmonaut's hand. It looks as if the design of the illustrated ray gun was 'inspired' by those popular Lone Star diecast cap gun's of the time. The 4x large blue hollow blown plastic target spacemen share a familiar pose found in their smaller cosmic cousins from LP.
The true sense of originality found in these enigmatic toys, can be felt through the comically insane mismatch of ingredients which were thrown together and peddled under the disguise of yesterday's popular fads.
Hong Kong rack toys are a lost art form, so cheap, so quirky, so disposable and now so rare. They have an undeniable appeal that draws me back to a different world.
Tony K.
