By the way ... All material posted before this entry was stuff prepared prior to June 2019 and shared to the venerable discussion forums at Alphadrome. Which any enthusiast of vintage Space Toys should be familiar with as a reference point on the idiom for which there is no comparison. Being familiar with Blogger from my arts site I decided to expand onto my own Space Toy blog and started with the content for the Alphadrome posts first. Will go back and add commentary + descriptions to them here, then link new content to Alphadrome when everything's set. Help save them some bandwidth too, cos I'm a nut. I know it too, and that's why I chose visual art as a career.
So: Archaic Helicopters. Yes -- Pre-Huey/Bell. Preferably variants which 1) Saw post-WW2 combat, and 2) May be famous for not have done very well. Am especially hot for an H-21 Flying Banana, the poor things, but the examples I've been able to find so far were either model kits (not a modeler, never was) or larger toys with working gears etc which cost actual money. I want to keep them simplistic, small as possible due to the size of diorama stands I'm using, and preferably made of softer Army Man type plastic like these two above.
Cheap rack toy choppers, likely hollow, Made in Hong Kong. Would have come sealed in a bag stapled to a card with one just like it for $.29 cents, or been part of an Army Man playset made in 1964 as examples of then-modern battle hardware. The more rickety and easy to shoot down they look the better, though rest assured I'm not out to massacre Flyboys. Idea is to play upon viewers recognizing them as outdated haphazard contraptions which were quickly supplanted by more modern models less prone to hazard. Where's the fun in that??
First off this turned up from a vendor in France who had no explanation how a Hing Fat type spaceman would end up cast in blue. I refer to them as "Space Bucket Astronauts" in that the casting variant is like those which were in the Space Adventure toy set I has a kid which came packed in a bucket. They all have the same curvy looking simplified Lunar Rover + Lunar Module forms, some terrain chunks. The ubiquitous US Flag with peg stand terrain bit. Maybe a rocket or two. Later versions had a Space Shuttle which is great but Space Shuttles never went to the moon.
Anyway, I'd never seen a blue Space Bucket guy and had to have one. I have a bunch cast in white, some in grey, but have never seen a blue one. Maybe they are common in Europe?? Hit me up in comments if you know. How about a blue Lunar Module to go with them?? Man ...
Will do a more in depth post on my Hing Fat Space Bucket guys.
No markings. All of mine have CHINA on their bases. So this is interesting, would like to know more.
Seller also had this dude, series or toy range unknown. Articulated at shoulders hips wrists and ankles. Definitely missing his front belt unit, but you know ... I kind of like that bent antenna. Has potential for ironic juxtaposition. And can make him a belt out of bits of space junk.
No markings immediately visible, maker and age unknown. Helmet is removable, and good news is a more pristine example was found just after scoring him. So this one can be the clumsy astronaut who bonked his helmet & broke the antenna. D'oh.
Mail Call also included this glorious little Chinook style helicopter. Softer Army Man type plastic, simple wheels and hollow but with a base + cockpit partition, no markings, date unknown. Raining like a mofo outside too so, Cheers to the Postman!
Also got out this sweetie, unmarked little Sikorsky style, very plain simplistic, even softer plastic and I love the yellow. Maker unknown, likely somewhat older than the Chinook. These are the kind of helicopters I want in my diorama forms. "David Bowie's Heleocopter", as my mom would call them, pronouncing it "Boowie" as well. We used to joke about David Bowie loaning me his helicopter to get around from art show to art show to help save time. Have heard others use the pronunciation "heleocopter" as well, and always found it fascinating.
So in my collecting lexicon these archaic ultra-simplified variants will be called David Bowie's Heleocopters. Hope to find more.
Let it rain.
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