B is for Big Blue Bellend!

But no Tech-bro' Origin! It's funny, an hour ago I was being sandblasted by warm, horizontal rain, every time I got out of the wagon, and I had to hold the door with both hands to stop it being ripped-back against its hinges, now it's as still out there, as the hour before the heat-death of the universe! How do you get warm rain in December? Oh, that's right, the end of the world, which nobody can be arsed to prevent!

 

I couldn't resist this, at November's Sandown Park show, which, it turned-out, was being sold by 'Ferryman', better known from another Blog, it was he who talked me into than gilded guppy-bus last show, and when we realised who we were, we had a quick chat, and I bought a little machine as well, which will be in the more conventional plunder posts in a few days, but I couldn't resist this, to add to my two German ones!

 

It looks like a giant firework! This is actually my second, I'd forgotten I already had one branded to Lyvia, which, from the artwork, is a slightly later issue. Although it looks like that one may be sunlight discoloured while this one is more of a minter.

 

Unlike the German corporate promotional's, with their simple slots, this one has a fancy mechanism for firing the coins into the domed head of the rocket, from whence they will fall down the shaft. The only trouble is that I don't know the combination, and while with only two discs it should only be 100 possibles, they are very stiff, and it could take hours to crack!

O is for On the Subject Of . . .

. . . evilBay providing answers to questions we didn't know we needed to be asking, I picked this up for a lot less than it should have, or could have gone for, and it would seem to be new to Blog and Hobby, but not the Internet, obviously, as it's been on feeBay!

 

I present to you, the Tom Smith 'Surprise Space Rocket'!

 

The 'surprise' being; it doesn't look much like a space rocket! The artwork however, does show a common design from the 1960's, looking like a Thunderbird Missile (real, not Gerry Anderson!) sans the four booster rockets, similar to the Bloodhound we know from our Airfix or Frog kits, but lacking the two side engines, the Thunderbird was the Army air-defence version of an RAF Bloodhound, having approximately half the range. It also has the lines of a Bomarc (Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center [sic]) CIM-10 (IM-99) Missile. All of which dates this cardboard tube, nicely to the mid-to-late 1950's

 

Quite a circus 'Big Top' look to the back of the tube, and this is clearly not aimed at either Christmas, Guy Fawkes Night (5th November), or Halloween (which was a nothing-event, here in the UK in the 1950's), but rather, like the giant 'party-popper' it appears to be, aimed at any-old reason to celebrate, any-old time!

  

And therefore, might have been available for some time, in this configuration, or other graphics, do you remember anything like this? I think you'd have to be over 70? 65 maybe?

Clockwise from top left; instructions; silver-paper covered card disc, and two shots of the 'pin' which launches the 'rocket'. I have had chats with Adrian Little and Paul Morehead about this, and rather than get their words/points wrong, I'll précis my thoughts on it, as they have evolved in conversion with both, and on studying the object/rocket!

 

When I first saw it, I assumed it would have a bang, from a black-powder charge, like the snaps in Christmas crackers; remember, Tom Smith also produced indoor fireworks; and that the force of the explosion, would propel the contents of the tube, through the silver paper, like a dog (or a clown) jumping through a paper-sealed hoop at the circus!

 

Also, the green 'gaffer tape' (always known as 'army tape' in our household, during my childhood), or carpet-tape, is something often associated with military pyrotechnics, such as thunderflashes, 'Schermuly' parachute flares* and trip-wire pot-flares, as companies like Pains Wessex tend to use the tape in the construction of such devices, often to cover the final triggering assembly from accidental use!

 

But, there's no pyrotechnic warning, as you will find on some Christmas cracker boxes, even those by Tom Smith, on all indoor fireworks, and would expect to find, on something more powerful, such as this 'bomb'. While the "Hold Away From Face" message could just be about flying stuff, rather than explosive stuff?

 

Also, the cuts in the paper-foil cover, which are to help it sit over the heavy particle-board/card base, would also allow it to fly-off? While the silver disc actually seems to have hard-card underneath, not likely to allow things to fly through?

 

So my suspicion, now, is that actually, the outer tube, telescopes off an inner tube, sprung-loaded, rather than pyrotechnic, and that the hats and novelties fall away from the 'rocket' as 'exhaust gases', landing near the launcher where they can all be found, rather than flying up into the air, over an explosion, to be scattered to the four winds, or at least behind all the furniture?

 

It remains to be seen, and, if it is only a spring, it might have been used and re-set, meaning the contents could be unoriginal crud?** The hope, obviously, is that it's all original and unused, and it WILL be tried, at the annual Christmas Breakfast, and hopefully videoed? However, last year's Christmas Breakfast was in the first week of March, so don't get too excited, it's only October now, so it may be up to six-months before the mystery is fully solved!

 

However, when you shake it (I have!), it's clear the items are more substantial that the average Christmas cracker prize/novelties, like rings or charms, so the hope is we may have something figural, even the astronauts or spacemen linked to crackers, but that's probably wishful thinking, with a selection of nail-clippers, whistles, jig-toys and novelty-shaped combs to look forward to? Again - only time will tell!

 

 

* Not 'shamoolie' as the Tabloids prefer, it's named after the inventor, ffs!!

 

** I have studied it with the jeweller's loupe, and it seems to be a substantial bed-spring type thing of about 2.5mm diameter steel-wire, and about three-and-a-half turns, attached to a thick piece of particle board above, closer to chip-board than the PCB-type card of the base, so I think a) it's not been reset and b) it will blow the whole silver disc out and spray stuff everywhere, only time will tell, and it will be told here!

T is for Two - Legami & Tinc's Astro' Erasers!

Retro Space Stationary! It almost trips off the tongue like it's a real 'thing', but then we've seen on the Blog, this year at least, it HAS been a real thing! These are sets' six and seven I think since January, with the two larger sized sets from Home Bargains a year or two ago, and another set a few years before them, but this has been THE year!

 

So, these came from Rymans back in April, although I think they are still in there, and when looking just now at exactly how many of these sets we'd seen this year I could only find four under the 'Eraser' Tag, as I think several were in the Toy Fair/Gift Fair posts, and this may have originally been one, we did look at Legami's stand I think. I also got the Panda USB stick/dongle, going cheap!

 

Only the Astronaut in this set, and his visor is a coloured plastic transparency, rather than more eraser material. Which is another minor bugbear about these posts, over here, in the UK we call them rubbers, or pencil rubbers, and because my PC knows it's in the UK, with UK settings, I get the blue-line from spellchecker every time I write 'eraser' with the option to change it to 'rubber', and the question "Do you wish to switch to American English"!

 

Or worse, a full admonishment; "Eraser is a common American expression. Consider using expressions more common to British English", which is daft in itself, as there's no such thing as British English, there's English, named after England, with regional accents, but we don't call them Scottish English, or Geordie English, we call them the Scottish and Geordie accents, otherwise we'd have to have an English-English!

 

Likewise, we talk of Canadian or Australian accents, not Canadian or Australian English, there IS an American English, because Noah Webster decided, arbitrarily, to 'simplify' some spellings, over those already established by the Oxford and Cambridge university dictionaries.

 

I actually decided to use eraser, way back when I first blogged them - The Diener robots/aliens, I think; 2009 - as I knew more people would likely search for that term, but in those days there was no impertinent spellchecker, hovering over my metaphorical e-Shoulder!

 

 Not the best shot, but he joined the stash, back in April/May!

 

Then I picked this up the other day, no, yesterday-evening! In TXMaxx,  Astronaut - check! Dodgy satellite - check! Retro-rocket - check! Planet - check! With planetary rings - bargain! Claiming to be designed in the UK (but made in China) by a Tinc (which may be a graphical branding of 'T' Inc.,?

The four items in close up, very much mirroring other items seen this year.

 

Quite the little steckfiguren, isn't he!

T is for Two - The Works

I popped into The Works the other day and found a couple of bits which might be of some interest, to some people, reading the Blog, so a quick T is for Two... presented itself as the obvious, despite it being more than two of any measure, the 'two' being sharpeners and erasers!

 

Stubby little moon-rocket pencil sharpeners, not terribly realistic, as is, but a coat of paint could render them useful cargo containers in some space-station/space base diorama, and, like a lot of space-based stationary . . . A bit of fun!

 

We may have seen all these before, but the larger Dinosaurs may be new to the Blog, or new in these small 'back to school' containers, but I got them and shot them, because the Blog is a bit of a gaping maw which requires constant feeding!

M is for Marx Space - Intro.

A bit of a box-ticking exercise, I bought another Marx space set the other day, it was packed with stuff, but not necessarily the stuff which should have been in it, lots of figures, which is what I was after, so I was happy enough, though.

 

However, because it was all a bit mixed, and because there are better US sources for all this stuff, which can be quite complicated, especially when several long-running playsets all carried similar stuff, I'm going to look at the figures over a few posts, as a sort of conversational overview, and some of the other stuff will come along for the ride!

 

So, this was the set I got, a bit tatty, but all in one piece, and supposed to be a 'Captain Space' set, however the contents were more suited to a 'Moonbase' set, with the figures surviving from the Captain Space set, along with their tinplate compound.

 

Compared with the tin Cape Kennedy carry-case I bought a while back.

 

The stuff I've left out of the posts, the tin-plate compound is in a bag, there's a ton of rocketry, but some of it's in a poor state, so I'll need to track down some better stuff later, although I haven't sorted them with the stuff in the main pile, or the extras in the Kennedy set, so something will come together.

 

The orange version of the launching gantry we saw, in white, in the Canaveral set, is definitely a Moonbase item, not a Captain Space thing, while I think the big rocket is MPC. Weirdest is the quadruple ray-gun platforms, there's about nine and a bit in this shot, plus a couple missing which were with the photo-shoot stuff!

 

Bases/lauchers, or parts thereof, from several other sets, and another piece of tin-plate, and a couple of things which aren't Marx were also kicking-about in the bottom of the box! Somehow missing the shot, was the Gemini module, but with a silver pilot, not the colour-matched get-up, we saw here, but the capsule was in the same leery orange-red!

 

But all these guys, gals and Aliens, along with a robot or two and a near full set of the larger 54mm NASA types were included, so it's through them, that I'm going to look at some of the more interesting bits, over a series of posts.
 

The grey ones are the Tom Corbett figures, with uniforms matching the NBC TV serial, the blue ones Rex Mars (Marx's own property), and the orange ones the Space Patrol figures, a set used to pack out the other pairs' sets, while the green ones are a set of Aliens pulled from the Rex Set for later issues like the Moonbase set.

 

I'm assuming the paint is all home-added, I can't find others similarly painted, so one day I'll clean them all off.

S is for Shelfies - The Range

Shot these back in February, but like a lot of things, they got caught in the general malaise here at Small Scale World this year and languished, lost in Picasa! So, with a rather Easter flavour, here's what was trending in The Range, six months ago!

 

Paint your own Rocket, what's not to like - 

And the umpteenth cartoony-retro rocket this year!

 

I shot these out of a sort of nostalgic feeling, one of the first things I ever reviewed in PW was the encapsulated toys, imported, then, from the USA (circus, wild animals and dinosaurs), and facing stringent safety stuff, due not to the swallowing danger (the capsules melted in warm water . . . or throats), but because the foam would then expand and present a breathing difficulty, they are now around the place in several formats, with no hysteria! Although, these are larger and for print-stamp painting.

 

More paint-your-own!

 

Blobby infant toys, but might turn up in mixed lots in the future?

 

Again nostalgia bit and I bought these, reminding me of the old Pop-a-point pencils of my youth, I've since seen several other similar products, bears, pigs etc . . . as pencils, coloured crayons or felt-tip markers, so clearly another bandwagon trend this year.

 

I also bought these because while the main 'Iwako Eraser' fad, seems to have cooled off, pencil-rubbers remain a great favourite, and you do still get the odd set of Iwako clones or homage-copies, and with a section of them in the collection, it's worth adding to, occasionally, to keep a picture of the genre's trends. These are not direct takes on Iwako, and bent ears seem a defining feature of the set! Branded to i-Doodle, everything else was in-house for The Range or CDS Group.
 

T is for Two - Pool Party!

I went back to B&M to try and get another set, so balance up the figures a bit, and they were sold-out in two stores! But I found these beach-toys, and shelfied one while buying the other!

 

Fun for kids, but the rubber boat would be useful for garden gamers. I suspect I bought these (or something very similar) a few years ago, which was why I only shelfied them, that and the rather too chunky, white-button motors!

 

De-carded now, so I can't retake it, I'm struggling with the settings on a new camera!

 

They are actually soft polymer (like a dense PVC), and totally sealed units so when the stack of three watch-batteries run out, there'll be no more lights, and the shock of them hitting the water presumably sets them off, I didn't work it out until I dropped one! It's the same tech' as all these flashing kids' shoes and suchlike!

 

B&M, now, three-quid each!

P is for Puffy Projectile Pen!

As the Actress said to the Bishop! Real life seems to be intervening again, but here's something I picked-up in Home Bargains a couple of days ago. As well as small pulp-rockets trending these days, pen and pencil tops are also enjoying a renaissance, with the big displays of such items, in The Works and some garden centres, and the many museums and 'end-destination, high-end, tourist leisure-facility' gift shops, where such things have always been the pocket-money staple!

 

So, combine the two tropes, with a soft-foam, spring-loaded, cartoon rocket on an teathered elastic string! Branded to TJM worldwide and Maxi Save down-under, it's a bit of fun and another Retro Rocket, which is not the same as a retrorocket!

Y is for You Wait Ages for One and Several Come Along At Once!

Hot on the heels of the two sets we saw a month ago, and the pencil top/clinger pair shown here at Small Scale World over Christmas, comes a fourth space-related set of erasers in as many months! This one credited to an Ooly, and containing 12 erasers for four-quid, or 33.3r-p each! 

Galaxy Blast! In the style of Iwako, as the previous two were, with a 'puzzle' element, they are press-together segments of different coloured rubber. If the connecting studs are the same diameter, we could have fun with all three sets, and others we've seen in the past? A future post maybe!

 

Peep's; the guy on the left looks a bit like a space faring Wimpy The Moocher from Popeye, I don't know why! In the middle, a domestic fembot of some kind, maybe a waitress at a drive-in, and an Alien Panda?

 

Spaceships; A pair of Bezos phallus-rockets in the background, and a fourth (seen here recently) pulp-ship in the centre, with two generic fighters/atmosphere craft either side!

 

Two more planets, both with rings, a giant telescope to the left, and a dish-concentrated death-ray to the right, ready to go to Hoth! Add the planets in the Home Bargains 'Blast Off' sets we saw here in '23 & '24, and there are more than enough now, to arrange for one to be Pluto!

K is for Kennedy Space Centre - Rocketry

As well as the larger rocket seen in the truck and gantry posts of this Carry All Action Cape Kennedy Play Set, there were a bunch of smaller ones which seem to slip over identical metallic-blue finned launcher-bodies with matching two part launchers, but there's a twist-and-fire mechanism, which requires springs, which are definitely missing, but easily replaced I think, they are quite wide and open springs, which just slip over the tops!

 

There were three missiles and the parts of six launchers, but only enough for the three needed, however, looking at the artwork on the tin, I think there should be three designs of these, two similar 'tube' ones, with one having a thinner probe-end? So I may need one of those, although there's a set on Etsy with two of the finned-ones, and another on evilBay with the same ones I've got, so Marx may have had given them a more random issuing? And most of the stickers are long-gone!

K is for Kennedy Space Centre - Trucks

A brief look at the trucks in my Carry All Action Cape Kennedy Play Set, there were four cab-units and five trailers, I think there should be three different trailers and three identical cabs, so obviously the contents of more than one set, plus a piece which is a bit of a mystery!

 

High-pressure liquid something?

It can't be 'rocket fuel' because that's the next one down!

"Honest Kev's Scaffolding Co."?

 

The rocket-fuel tanker, it's marked 'ROCKET FUEL'!

 

The rocket transporter, the rocket just sort of sits there, it's not held-in firmly, and you get the feeling it (the trailer) was a bit of a rush-job, or afterthought? Cab is similar to my Aurora tanker kit (although 'kit' is doing the simplified, almost clip-together too much justice!), so a future comparison with other similar types is on the cards! Scale is about 1:70, or bigger, and they are simple 'readymade' style models; right up my street!

 

This was also in the tin? I don't think it belongs in the tin, I don't think it's even Marx, in fact, I think it might be a ladder from a carpet/beach-toy fire engine, but I don't know, and any clues will be gratefully received, but it is the same colour and type of polypropylene, that the vehicles are made of; which is the same plastic as the return-module, so it could be another, contemporaneous, Marx piece?

K is for Kennedy Space Centre - Rocket Gantry

Continuing to look at the contents of the Carry All Action Cape Kennedy Play Set, from the mighty Louis Marx Toy Co., we get to the important bit, the launch tower, there were the bits of two towers, in the tin, but only enough pieces for one working tower, and by 'working' I mean the gantry slides back and forth, the spring-mechanism for firing the missiles is missing, and will have to be searched for.

 

First, though, the flag! Did Marx ever issue a play set without a flag (or flags!)? The Cavemen sets, maybe, the Troll villages, Disney . . . OK, there were lots of sets with no flag! But it was a feature of many and there are variations, this is the common one, two-part plastic, the base an earth-pile, with a slip-on tin-plate National Standard.

 

The full construction with the main gantry pushed back to its start position.

 

The main components of the tower and base.

 

The launching spigot, which is clearly missing a spring or something?

 

Rocket in-situ, with the gantry slid forward.

 

For a toy, under the tree at Christmas, this is a fine thing, isn't it? More representative of what NASA was doing on the TV news night-in, night-out as the Apollo launches drew near, and more realistic than the earlier sets from MPC, Deluxe/Topper, or Marx themselves?