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! ;-)