Picked this up the other day, little rocket pencil sharpener, although, it's not that little; it's nearly ten-inches of pulp-cover, Space Age, interstellar loveliness, from Combex, that [not] very well known ex-comb maker! Geddit! Lots of useful stuff here.
To give a sense of the size, it's here posed with some Giant clones and a couple of Keshi eraser types I happened to have to hand. Clearly this was more of a desktop novelty than a pencil-case thing, and I'm a bit gutted I never found one in my Christmas stocking, because clearly it belonged there!
The whole ship is hollow, so you can literally disintegrate most of the contents of your pencil-case, in one sitting, should you be minded to! And the seven-vent engine-bay is removable to empty the contents. Maybe, it was sold AS a pencil-case, possibly even having some pencils secreted within, it could easily take five or six . . . anyone know? Yes it was, see comments/Graces Guide page (link below) - 1954! It's 69!
There are two launching 'rails' moulded on the underside, so it was a horizontal launcher, a popular launch method in early fiction, whether fired as projectiles or using some magnetic-levitation device, or sequential-explosion (multi-chamber) accelerator. There is interesting stuff being done to deliver small payloads with a giant revolving sling-shot arm, at the moment.
Posed with what I think might be early (very clean/sharp mouldings), factory-painted (more in a later post), Premier space-ship escorts, I think the far one is what Ed Berg has dubbed a 5" Dart - version 6, and the near one is a 3" Wide Body - version 1?
Obviously, with the rails on the underside, giving an 'up' and 'down', I never really thought to photograph the red side! So black-top and red-bottom/wings, and it's pretty awesome!
I see whole new series of 007 movies coming into existence. I know we have seen rockets before, but not with the likes of these. Or at least they can find their way into the next science fiction flick.
ReplyDeleteThat's an idea Jan and no mistake!
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Your link shows it was sold as a Pencil Box. I'm pretty certain that if I had one as a kid my teachers would have confiscated it as a toy had I taken it to school.
ReplyDeleteMy link? Show's how superficial my search was! I'll have to go and have a look!!! Cheers Brian! Yes, it is a bit sharp!
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Oh yes, on the Graces Guide page . . . how did I miss that! I could have nicked the image . . . hay-ho! Well spotted anyway!
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I got one of these in 2017 and have only recently managed to get the cap off! It had old Revell decals applied and the sharpener had been glued on tight! Bill
ReplyDeletehttps://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2017/08/an-open-and-shut-case.html
Soaking in Bleach sometimes helps to soften glue Bill, but I've not tried polystyrene cement? And it can discolour the plastic, I bleached a couple of the Atlantic mini-sphinxes and they ended-up looking like they'd done ten years in a sandpit, but were otherwise OK!
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