Vintage Space Lady

From the same toy dealer who found last month's vintage space lady, here's another one! The four inch tall figure is from the 1950s, and would have been sold in the dime stores of the day. She has a slot in her hand which probably originally held a ray gun, and features lovely silver gilt trim. She appears to march confidently into the future.

Archer Space Woman

If you've read this blog for awhile, you'll know that I have a thing for Archer Space Men, absolutely fantastic little 4 inch plastic figures sold in dime stores in the 1950s. If you haven't been reading this blog for awhile, you can catch up on the Archer Space Man posts by clicking here and here and here.

Anyway, the Archer Space Men had a couple of female companions, the Archer Space Women. They're rather scarce today: it appears the women weren't manufactured in nearly the same amounts as the men, probably on the assumption that they wouldn't be as popular with the target audience of little boys. I've kept an eye out for one for several years, but had nary a sighting until this one turned up at a recent toy show. Isn't she just fabulous?!

The Space Woman is on the left, wearing what appears to be a micro-mini skirt.

Clanky the Chocolate Syrup Spaceman

The space race of the 1950s and '60s resulted in all sorts of fabulous interstellar themed products for children ranging from toys to snack foods, including some like Clanky that were a little bit of both.  

Clanky Chocolate Flavor Syrup debuted in 1963, with a bizarre but catchy commercial (see it by clicking here.)

From the commercial, Clanky's theme song:

"We love Clanky, Clanky the Spaceman.
 He can do a lot of things nobody else can!
 We just squeeze him,
 (bloop, bloop, bloop)
 And he makes our milk all chocolatey.
 Chocolatey!"

Clanky's ingredients: a little bit of stardust and a whole lot of sugar.

The 9 1/2 inch plastic Clanky the spaceman came filled
with chocolate syrup that could be stirred into milk,
poured onto ice cream, or simply squirted directly into your
mouth if your mom wasn't watching. Once all the chocolate was gone (and, presumably, mom had thoroughly rinsed him out)
Clanky could be used as a toy, a sort of large scale action figure
(minus the action features).

Today Clanky serves as a great example of vintage space race product tie-ins, and he looks fab smiling from a shelf full of related toys.

The Strato Bank

Can you believe banks in the 1950s used to give away things as cool as this, for free?  It's true! The Strato Bank was a promotional item given out to young customers, encouraging them to save their pennies, nickels, and dimes. The 8 1/4 inch long, cast metal mechanical bank originally had labels on the sides identifying its affiliated institution.

After loading a coin on top of the spaceship, a spring loaded mechanism blasts it into the moon with the press of a button. Super, super cool.

The coins go right in front of the little red plane on top of the spaceship, and the button just before the tail fin shoots them away.

I think we'd all like bankers a lot better today if they still gave us things like this.

Antique Show Find: Vintage Spacemen

Vintage space toys are some of my favorites, and I'm always on the lookout for them at antique shows. Recently I found these 3 fabulous space guys. At 3 1/4 inches tall, they're smaller than the famed Archer Space Men, but they have their own great style.

Marching into the future, circa the 1950s.

1967 Mini-Martians Dolls, House, and Space Ship

The Mini-Martians have landed! I've finally snagged one of the hardest to find and most sought toys on my wish list: the Mini Martians, made in Japan in 1967 by Swedlin as an exclusive for Sears department store.

 1967 Sears catalog ad.

A perfect confluence of the mid-1960s mod, space-race, and small doll fads, the Mini-Martians were 4 1/2 inch tall vinyl figures with moveable arms and heads, dressed in day-glo "Carnaby Comet" fashions. Like so many dolls of this period, the Martians had a vinyl dollhouse with a vacuum-formed, brittle plastic interior. Their scarcest accessory was a blue flying saucer car.  Made for such a short time for a limited marketplace, and from fragile materials, the Martians are rare finds today.

 The Mini-Martians Star House, 15 1/2 inches wide.

Inside the Star House, the Mini-Martians had a sleeping loft, closet with space suits, a space viewer screen, a panoramic window with a lovely view of the galaxy, and a parking terrace for an (attached) jet car. 

The original catalog ad reads:

 

"Martian Star House. $3.99.

Far beyond earth's bustling pace Mini-Martians dwell at ease. Zooming around in 'outer space,' Mini-Martians live and play. Nestled among the stars and comets...a home so streamlined, all their own. Brightly colored outside and in. Space car parks on terrace platform. Two elevated bunks for sleeping. Video scanner to check on pals...Vinyl house closes for visits to 'other planets.' "

This toy came out a few years before I was around, but if I had been, that dreamy ad copy alone would have sold me. Who wouldn't want to live in a house of her own nestled among the stars and comets?

Inside the Star House.

Sleeping bunks.

Closet with space suits hanging on the wall.

Video scanner. 

 Star Car parked on the terrace.

The Martians themselves are adorable and funky, dressed in brightly colored felt and metallic foil clothing with teeny tiny space boots (often missing). Each Martian came with a name, described in the catalog copy, which introduced them thusly:

"Mini-Martians. $1.49 each.

Futuristic sprites a mere 4 1/2 inches tall. They'll take you to their world above where make-believe is so much fun...Remove boots for barefoot space walks. Dressed in supersonic styles. From Japan. Collect all 6 and have your own Mini-Martian community."

I'm a few short of a community, but was lucky to find 2 in minty condition (with their boots, even!), while the house came with a couple of more-played-with Martians.

 Professor Pook appears to be the villian of the bunch. 

He's got those sinister-looking pointy-down eyebrows...

Marti is the boy Martian, while Bonnie, below, 

in her odd space visor, is one of the girls.

And here is the seldom-seen "Jet Car," 

for jaunts around the universe.

 Blasting off...

Swift's Space Guide Advertising Premium

This 1950s space guide is one of the coolest advertising premiums I've come across recently. Released by a meat products company called Swift's, the 5 1/4 inch space guide has a turning wheel and die cut windows that reveal all sorts of interesting astronomical trivia. Need to know the surface temperature of Mars? Just turn the wheel and find out.

If you find yourself wondering, as I did, what meat products have to do with outer space, the connection is revealed on the back of the guide:

I believe this is the same Swift's Premium Company that distributed this ham shaped charm or watch fob in the 1920s (seen here in the kitchen of an old dollhouse).

Fisher Price Space Blazer

Zooming in for a landing is my very favorite vintage Fisher Price pull toy: 1953's Space Blazer. Measuring 14 inches long, the wooden, paper lithographed Space Blazer features a domed cockpit with a green alien pilot, a bouncing antenna on the front, and a clanging bell on the rear. As the toy is pulled, the cockpit spins and the bell rings.

The little green man is adorable:

The Space Blazer's lithography is beautifully done, 

with lots of great detail:

Blast off!

Vintage Space Toy Display in a Gumball Machine

I've accumulated a lot of vintage space toys lately, and was looking for a new way to display them that wouldn't take up so much room. I also had an old gumball machine that I'd been trying to find a use for, and one day, as I looked at it, I thought it might actually make an interesting sort of display case.

It had a prominent metal mechanism in the center, which originally turned to push the toy capsules out when a quarter was inserted, and it also had a wire arch that spanned the front window, used to hold the machine's original advertising card in place. They had a machiney, space-agey, electrical look to them, like props from the set of Metropolis, I thought...so I installed some 1950s children's space print fabric as a backdrop, then arranged a scene using vintage Archer Space Men and robots, along with some 1950s space-themed dexterity puzzles.

A closer-up view:

It hasn't really helped alleviate the crowded display area, 

(which is supposed to be my kitchen table)

but it came out pretty cool:

R and L Premiums

At a weekend toy show recently, I found a whole heap of...well, very odd things. These little plastic characters, between 1 and 1 1/2 inches tall, were cereal premiums (and sometimes Cracker Jack prizes) made in the late 1960s and 1970s by an Australian company called R & L. The tiny toys were found in packages of Kellogg's cereal worldwide, although there were some country exclusives. In the late '70s, the company was sold and the owners moved the plant to Mexico, where production continued in a range of new, brighter colors.

There were many different sets of odd and imaginative characters produced by R & L, often with spacey, alien themes, and each with individual names. Fanatical collectors strive to get them all, sometimes in every color combination possible.

These, the Crater Critters, are some of my favorites. The original cereal box promotion read: "Here are the cutest creatures you have ever collected -- Kellogg's 'Crater Critters." Normally they live way down in the deepest craters on a far off planet. They are shy little people, that's why we hardly ever see them."
Click here to see an original cereal box ad for the Crater Critters. 

My favorite so far is called Gloob; 

I have him (her?) in orange and purple:

Next are the AstroNits: "Round and round they go in lunar orbit, in their rockets and flying saucers, the mad, crazy Kellogg's 'Astro-Nits.' With retro rockets firing they zoom into Earth orbit to land on your breakfast table. So you can recognize them we have stamped a dotty name on every one of them." Some of the AstroNits shown below include Knot-Nit, Clown-Nit, Goof-Nit, and Yak-Nit.

My favorite is Goof-Nit:

Then there are the Funny Fringes: "Way out fun creatures from a make-believe land on the fringe of outer space." They all have names ending in "inge."

Here are some of my favorites:

Spinge and Fringe.

Sniffinge, Puddinge, and Nuttinge.

These are the far-out Toolie Birds: bird figures with tool-shaped beaks:

 

One of my favorite R & L lines comprises the Stretch Pets, funny animals with accordion bodies. These, and one of the Funny Fringes, I actually remember from childhood:

Collecting R & L premiums can be both a lot of fun (finding figures in cases full of unrelated items at shows) and a lot of frustration (trying to get that elusive last Crater Critter to complete your set), but regardless, they bring a smile to my face every time I look at them.

Collector Mike Speth has written a great guide to these toys, "Collecting Crazy Colored Plastic Weird-Things," that appeared in issue #12 of Freakie Magnet, a cereal collector's zine. It can also be read online, and is chock-full of photos and helpful info. The company history, figure identifications, cereal box quotations, and original ad linked above were all found at his site. Go check it out!

itty bitty robots

When I was a kid back in the 1970s, one of my favorite toys was actually one of my smallest and cheapest: a set of tiny, 1 inch tall plastic robots that came from a gumball machine, or possibly from the "cheap toy aisle" at the grocery store, I can't really remember. They were just the right size to carry around, and they went everywhere with me. My two little brothers loved the robots too, and even though we all played with them and toted them about, we still have them today.

Shown twice as large as actual size!

I've always been on the lookout for more of these wonderful little robot guys, but had never seen any until we discovered some at a recent toy show. Oddly, these are red, although they're clearly from the same molds, and they have exactly the same stamping on the bottom ("H.K." for Hong Kong.) The dealer and I were both really excited to find each other, as we'd both been looking for more information on these guys for the last 20 years, but were both disappointed to discover neither of us knew anything about them. 

Does anyone out there recognize these robots???

1950s Space Race Card Game

I found this fantastic 1952 space themed card game, "Space Race," at a toy show last weekend, and was blown away by its graphics. The deck features classic mid-century space exploration illustrations, including sleek rocket ships, clean-cut space men, and outrageous space monsters.

Here are closeups of some of the coolest cards: