Dinky Space:1999 Eagle Spacecraft and the Museum of Brands

I was in the UK in April for an eight-day vacation. While I didn't do anything directly Star Wars collecting-related, there was some tangential vintage collecting content to the trip, particularly at the amazing Museum of Brands in Notting Hill, London.

It was kind of a fluke that I even visited the Museum. I'd never even heard of it but I ended up walking right past it on the way from my "hotel" (another story) to the local Co-op for food. I was intrigued by what I saw of it on the internet and set some time aside for a visit. If you're inclined to check it out I highly recommend that you go on their website first as they offered a 50% ticket discount code, I think the discounted ticket price was seven pounds. And what do you get in London for seven pounds!?!

Here's some of what I saw there:

The place was very interesting. It's based around a large collection of artifacts (the "Time Tunnel") amassed by collector and "consumer historian" Robert Opie. The Time Tunnel guides visitors through the evolution of consumer culture from the Victorian era to the present. There's a ton of packaging and branding stuff, Victoriana, Disneyana, and of course toys and games, including these absolute bangers! 

If you have to say "it's popular," is it really popular...?

A jolly game!

Truly terrifying

Thrill a minute, this one

Well whoever decorated Goering got his armband on the wrong arm, for starters...

My absolute favourite. Mum is obviously drunk

But there was some Star Wars stuff too of course, including a boxed large-sized IG-88, wow!

Anyway...

The special exhibition at the Museum was related to Gerry Anderson and his two iconic creations - Thunderbirds and Space:1999. There were hundreds of well-curated toys and collectibles related to these two properties on display, as well as a video of interviews playing on a loop. It was all really quite spectacular.

But the best thing about this was of course the Eagle, Brian Johnson's iconic spacecraft design that was so emblematic of Space:1999. Check them out!

Seeing all of these Eagle toys reminded me how cool the vehicle was, and prompted me to add a couple examples of the ship to my own vintage toy collection!

The first one I got was Dinky #359 - the Eagle Transporter:

This example is really in remarkable condition, with just a bit of paint wear on the white metal pod, and decals still intact.

The transport pod is removable of course. The landing pads are spring-loaded too so they have a bit of flex.

While the pod is metal, the ramps on each side are plastic, and can be lowered/opened. Originally the toy came with water-transfer decals (red stripes) to make this into an "emergency rescue" pod at the option of the purchaser.

This is apparently an "early production" variation of the toy, as it has the chrome engine bells and thrusters, red tanks, and "unbraced" spine rails... if you want to see more about the variations have a look here.

The other Dinky Eagle is #360, the Eagle Freighter. I got one of these from a seller in the UK. It was missing the "waste barrels" but reproductions are readily available, they're 3D printed nowadays with original-style adhesive labels. I got a set of these too, also from a seller in the UK (big thanks go to my friend Jenn N. for forwarding these to me and helping me avoid the extortionate "eBay Global Shipping Program" fee of over 20GBP for an 8GBP set of barrels). 

The freighter pod is removable of course and looks very original. You can attach the magnet to the metal bit on the top of a waste barrel and wind the "cable" (string) up and down using the two thumbwheels on the top. This let kids replicate the action seen in episode one ("Breakaway") which of course ended in disaster for Moonbase Alpha... the nuclear waste dump on the far side of the Moon went up in a massive explosion and sent the Moon careering out of its orbit! (spoiler alert)

The big question is "why oh why did Dinky not make a screen-accurate Eagle Transporter with white metal parts (as on the Freighter) and the white Transporter pod?" Nobody knows the answer, but while examples have surfaced in this configuration, knowledgeable collectors have said that these were retail put-togethers and this combination was never produced by the factory.  

Here's the underside of the ship.

Close-up of the text here. On the disc: "MECCANO LTD EAGLE F / Dinky TOYS B / (c) A T V LICENSING LTD 1974" and on the frame: "MADE IN ENGLAND / EAGLE FREIGHTER"  

One last thing about the waste barrels... the reproductions shown in this post are repros of the first style of barrel. They look pretty good and are hollow like originals, and molded in yellow with ferrous discs on the top for the magnet. There is a second style though that changed the "radiation symbol" and text to a much more benign looking symbol and text... this was prompted by an incident in 1979 where an 11-year-old girl named Marianne Fleckeny found one of these toy waste barrels in her back garden in St Albans, Herts, and her dad freaked out and called the hazardous waste disposal! Dinky thereafter thought it prudent to remove the actual radiation symbols from their toy.  

The Eagle Transporter and Freighter are great-looking toys and apart from the paintwork, are pretty credible screen-accurate replicas of the vehicles in the show. I'm not a big Space:1999 collector by any means (I barely remember the show from when it was first on TV) but I love the Eagle design and these are super-cool toys to have.

Thanks for reading and it'll be back to Star Wars next post, I promise! ;-)

Regal Toy Plush Chewbacca Redux

I've had this item in my collection for a few months now but wanted to post it up just for the sake of completeness. It is of course another Regal Toy plush Chewbacca - but unlike the other one in my collection, this one is complete with all of its tags!

Isn't this a beauty, the original hang tag. Regal Toy was one of the first global manufacturers to bring out Star Wars toys - it produced a plush Chewbacca, R2D2 and Jawa. As noted in a previous post, the Regal Chewbacca differs a bit from the Kenner one as it's a bit bigger, and has its materials/care tag in a different place.

Bilingual hang tag of course!

Here's the Regal Toy materials/care tag at the waist. Kenner version had the tag at the neck.

The other side has French.

The toy was missing two of the cartridges from the bandolier but fortunately I had two 3D-printed cartridges left from the last project. These are a slightly different colour than the originals and marked "Reproduction" of course.

I love the Regal Toy plush characters, they're among the first Star Wars toys ever produced and have their own real charm. Of course now that I've got a couple Chewbaccas I am on the lookout for an R2D2 and a Jawa. The Regal Toy Jawa is a unique and rare piece, coming up for sale infrequently, and is certain to command a price well in excess of the $75CAD I paid for this Chewie at a local shop. I reckon I got an amazing deal on this one (with tags intact!) and it's not going anywhere.

Micro Collection Millennium Falcon Vehicle

Photo courtesy Star Wars Collectors Archive

OK so here we go with another great Micro Collection toy! It's the Sears exclusive Millennium Falcon - the third example of the Falcon in Kenner's lineup (the others being the 3 3/4" toy and the diecast one).

I think that this version is even cooler than the 3 3/4" one. It's certainly a lot more rare but the play features are unique as well. You might wonder why there's no 3PO or R2 in the box tableau - that's because the examples I have are still in their baggies (see farther below) and I couldn't bring myself to open them for the pictures, sorry! And crazily enough, this is the only Micro Collection toy or playset that came with the droids figures. Don't believe me?

Of course we've got the dorsal blaster here with gunner's chair, just like on the larger version of the toy. The interior detail stickers are great aren't they!

Now this is a unique feature of the toy - the top hatch. As you'll see in photos later you can use it to stage the rescue of Luke from the weather vane beneath Cloud City. 

There's even a ventral blaster cannon - also unique to this toy version of the Falcon.

It's really a good-looking model of the ship.

Here's that top hatch in action. The figure poses are pretty specific to this scene from the movie aren't they! (note handless Luke)

Here's the two droids in their original sealed baggies. Didn't have the heart to open them, unlike my Jabba the Hutt playset.

All in all a very cool toy (it certainly scales to the figures better than the large version does) but pretty hard to find nowadays and consequently, expensive. You could probably buy a decent boxed large Falcon for the money you have to pay for a complete loose one of these. But for the Micro Collection completist, it's a must.