About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Sunday, January 8, 2023

H is for How They Come In - November Sandown Park - Marx Mini Space Sets

This was going to be a box-ticker for the two new sets, as I thought I'd posted one years ago, but I can't find the first on the Blog, so maybe I didn't! Or it's just not tagged right? Still a box ticker though, as Ed's done them in greater detail, but I'll put the link at the end so you at least scroll through these first!

Hugh Walter; Hugh Walter's Blog; Lunar Exploration; Marx Figures; Marx Miniature Masterpiece; Marx Space Tank; Marx Space Vehicles; Marx Toy Soldiers; Marx Toys; Miniature Playset; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Play Set; Space Tank; Spacemen;
A bit of a Christmas present to myself, as they weren't cheap, but you do go to these shows hoping to occasionally find something more 'grail' and less 'run-of-the-mill', so when I saw them I pretty much had to have them, and when I suggested a reasonable discount for the pair the seller was happy to go with it and they came home with me!

Hugh Walter; Hugh Walter's Blog; Lunar Exploration; Marx Figures; Marx Miniature Masterpiece; Marx Space Tank; Marx Space Vehicles; Marx Toy Soldiers; Marx Toys; Miniature Playset; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Play Set; Space Tank; Spacemen;
Originally 2000-Yen (about 8-quid/$10 in today's money, so back in the day - bloody expensive!), the 'Monument Valley' vignette has a hideous carbon-footprint and what is probably one of the better of the vehicles in these sets, but when I say 'better', most of them are considerably more naff than the cheapest LB rip-off cake decoration ones, mostly they really are a bit tacky, in the unloved 'rush-job' meaning of the word! The Space Tank (below) is probably the best of a pretty rum-bunch!

Ed's sets have different contents, so while there seem to be three backdrops (desert, temperate/tropical and frozen), there are more than four or five (?) contents, each being sewn/glued-in, in batches I would imagine, with the contents/vehicle type/figures being changed as stock of one particular piece ran out?

Hugh Walter; Hugh Walter's Blog; Lunar Exploration; Marx Figures; Marx Miniature Masterpiece; Marx Space Tank; Marx Space Vehicles; Marx Toy Soldiers; Marx Toys; Miniature Playset; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Play Set; Space Tank; Spacemen;
The 'Green Planet' vehicle is even more basic, and like the other sets comes with scaled-down space figures (usually three, but I've seen four and two) from Marx's larger-scale ranges, and there a lot of variety between them with some hard 'styrene, some soft 'ethylene polymer, and white, silver/gunmetal or orange plastic, painted or unpainted.

Hugh Walter; Hugh Walter's Blog; Lunar Exploration; Marx Figures; Marx Miniature Masterpiece; Marx Space Tank; Marx Space Vehicles; Marx Toy Soldiers; Marx Toys; Miniature Playset; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Space Play Set; Space Tank; Spacemen;
This is an old evilBay image of the best vehicle I've seen so far (which may be the missing set of mine? It's definitely the 'ice planet' backdrop of my first set, but I can't remember my vehicle . . . might be the Matt Mason 'walker'?), a real space-tank, which looks to be based on the Marx unnumbered 'poly' tank chassis, Moonbase looked at another in depth, a while ago, from Arto in Finland, so they got around a bit!

Anyway, Ed Burg looked at more of them awhile ago, with more close-ups, set variations, box-types and comparisons with the larger scale figures, so head over there as well. When I find the other one, we'll have a proper look at the three for a better box-tick!

2 comments:

Andy B said...

You probably already know this, (but if not), the vehicles, other than the "space tank" are crude scale-downs of larger battery-operated space toys by Marx. And the sets were overpriced to begin with (perhaps the justification for this was that they were "coloured by artists"...)

Hugh Walter said...

Yes Andy, Ed explains which-is-which after that last jump, and I would say I pretty much missed all that B/O stuff, but as you ca see in the next post, I now have a pretty wacky Bulldozer!

H