Obtained as a "New But Opened" unit, and I do believe it was even though entropy has not been kind to the packaging. Above the most dead-on shot I could get of the blister card art without peeling the remaining plastic off. Will maybe try that acetone method so it can go on the scanner; love those diagonal lines.
Before we take another step, Click here to visit Paul Vreede's Triang Spacex Golden Astronaut info site's page about the multi-vehicle Spacex and Golden Astronaut toy sets. "Launch Site" is towards the top at right.
Set unpacked, with anonymously made three-stage Cap Bomb rocket Made in Hong Kong and the rocket gantry from the Remco Space Shuttle set I obtained for its spacemen. Well, and the gantry too. Without a gantry for your rockets you are just waiting for a stiff breeze, Holmes.
LUNCH SITE ... Mom liked that. Helped me edit pix and likes the Security Copter best. She also has a "thing" about mispronouncing the word as "heel-ee-oh-copter", much as she insist on calling performer David Bowie as David boo-wee. So I like showing her the helicopters in my little collection such as yea, and referring to it as "David Boo-Wee's Heel-eee-oh-copter" and it always gets a laugh out of the old gal. He had to have security for his concert, you see, so they used a heleocopter.
Some artiness here ...
See, after Marx's "Operation Moon Base" this stuff is the shit. Exactly the kind of colorful flimsy dollar store quality plastic crap from Hong Kong that my father would have stridently opposed our having as kids. We had our sturdy 6-inch Marx guys, Space Buckets, a succession of model kits which were loved to pieces, and then the "Adventure Team" era G.I. Joe astronaut stuff -- never had the space capsule, but I had that thumb-powered heleocopter -- after which we were done with Space Toys. It was all G.I. Joe & Hot Wheels in that house from maybe 1974 on.
The G.I. Joe connection is also prescient as that it was likely searching for ATV 6x6 forms which led me to the T-T Terrain Tiger vehicle, which was even yellow just like G.I. Joe's open top yellow ATV. Wanting to learn about it led me first to the Alphadrome Indexes of Space Toy forms, then to the Triang Spacex Golden Astronaut website maintained by Commodore Vreede. Been hopelessly hooked on the aura of the toy range since, only cure being to try and make my own. Like something from the past that I would have no way of remembering as I'd never experienced it. Shielded, likely, from such forms during forays to the toy stores. I woulda had to have every last one of them.
And indeed I was too young to have seen a scrap of this as a kid. Born in 1967 and never heard of Golden Astronauts at all before encountering The Ancient Mariner over the winter. Instantly hooked: The Spacex/GA Moon Base is a Holy Grail List item for sure. Just warming up with these very basic Earth-bound vehicles, and had already obtained compromised examples of each.
Left: T-T "Terrain Tiger"
Center: Forklift 7 "Lift Loader"
Right: P3 "Security Patrol Copter"
Untouched, unplayed with, New Old Stock examples. Hallelujah.
Our Golden Astronauts with L5 driver. "Golden Astronaut" striking me as subtle homage to Gerry Anderson, whose "Project Sword" publications were the source of many vehicles from the Sx/GA range.
Roosevelt Dime for scale, and my first "new" loose GAs.
In it's original 54mm size the figure on the left was intended to have been holding a flag, its shaft trimmed off for a more universal mould size so it could be cast with the others. I'd obtained a rubber "giggler" version of it over the spring and was puzzled about its purpose until learning such.
All of the Sx/GA astronauts were made by LP Toys in Hong Kong, apparently still in business. Figures are cast in black plastic and painted with a chromed surface, then dyed yellow (or not) for the Golden Astronaut look.
The T-T "Terrain Tiger", new/unused example at left. Compromised T-T at right has no grapple hook + twine and a damaged middle axle.
Another note about the Terrain Tiger is that its name is very similar to the Matchbox "Terrain Tracker", also a favored 6-wheel off road ATV and I mix the two names up all the time.
New/unused example only marked "Made In Hong Kong", as were all of the Spacex & Golden Astronaut toys, with production pretty much running late 1968 to 1971 or so. Copies and clones continued to be made into the late 1970s, and basic components of the larger toy set collection still surface as new/sealed cake decoration toppings.
Compromised T-T, missing its twine + grapple hook. Still works fine as a diorama subject! All its gotta do is look cool.
Compromised T-T has the complete Triang Spacex logo along with a "Made In Hong Kong" in a smaller font.
The two also have windshields of differing hues & luminance. At left the "new" T-T with a greener tint to its casting, at right the compromised T-T with a bluer and more opaque "glass".
Variations in such casting nuances are to be expected. While endowed with a very special aura the Sx/GA stuff is dollar store quality. Flimsy, inexpensive, drop it on the hard floor and you are crying delicate. I keep even the broken ones bagged up and in a storage box when not making pix.
I've managed to score three of the L5 "Lift Loaders" and the one at left was my first Sx/GA vehicle, obtained from a vendor in Belarus & likely a Spacex version. New/unused "Launch Site" example at center, and at right another suspected Golden Astronaut version missing its top bracing bar on the lift. Both of them have a lighter and "bluer" plastic than the one on the right, which is darker and more opaque.
New/unused "Launch Site" Lift Loader.
It's a forklift. Not much else going on.
Driver figure. Ever since seeing him driving a golf cart, whenever tagging my videos on YouTube I always add a tag for "Bez Driving / Flying a _________", blank being whatever the video is about. So that's Bez, the dancing maracas guy from the Happy Mondays, driving a Space Forklift.
New/unused unit, distinguishable by the wavy pattern to the excess chrome paint on the lift bottom.
The "first" version I obtained from the vendor in Belarus. Chassis a noticeably darker blue then the new/unused example above. Only real flaw is that its lift platform won't stay in the up position. Other than that good to go, which makes sense as it was both the sturdiest constructed and least interesting of all the Sx/GA vehicles. My fondness being the result of having made a "Forklift Arena" deathmatch level for the shooter game SiN, which had nothing but drivable forklifts. You'd smash each other into bits & the exploding vehicle would send its driver flying. Or just squash each other into a pulp. Lots of laughs!
Markings identical to the "Launch Site" LL, and according to the Sx/GA site the Spacex and Golden Astronaut ranges' Lift Loaders were identical including markings. But I think it was Spacex because of where it came from & what the vendor described it as. Seeing that the plastic is also of a darker hue than the other two just makes the conclusion more firm: Produced in different batches if nothing else.
ITS BEZ! AND HE'S DRIVING A SPACE FORKLIFT <3
I'd watch that show.
Compromised LL from a US based vendor, with the happier bluer-blue also seen on the Launch Site LL. Not that it means anything.
Half an astronaut. Ends at his waist.
Same markings on all three.
Trying to compare driver figures ... Pretty sure they are identical.
And off they go.
P3 / "Security Patrol Copter", easily the most delicate of the Sx/GA vehicles I've collected. I won't even deal with trying to get the new/unused "Launch Site" copter's rotor in place. Using a bit of sticky putty for the pix, with the compromised unit on the left. I also have a still-carded Spacex P3 on the Ogle Wall and will add a pix of it after we sort the rest of this out.
Click here for the Sx/GA site's reference page for the "P3 Helicopter" or "Security Patrol Copter", as both of my loose examples are called.
David Bowie's Security Heleocopter. Please note that the more pinkish hue is from the cheap desk lamp used to illuminate this surface.
Using flashlight to discern the Triang Spacex logo, and even that's not the right color.
Access hatch. I'm not messing with it.
I know there was a variation on the rotor blade design, not sure which one I have.
The notch which fits into the chassis to hold the rotor in place is slightly bigger than its totally non-reinforced hole. And since I have no need to see the rotor spinning went the sticky putty route. 1001 space toy uses for that stuff! starting with just getting your astronauts to stand upright. Get some next time you are at the pharmacy.
That'll do ...
... Rather than risk this, marking the P3 as another toy which appears to have been designed specifically to be destroyed. Hard fragile thinly cast plastic, chinsy little wheels which barely roll, imprecise seams & little in the way of reinforcement. Likely has a plain strip of metal inside just to help weight it down. These were low cost disposable toys meant for sale at newsstands, drug stores or airport gift shops. None of it was meant to survive long enough for the kid to even get bored with it, and surviving examples in even this good condition are a marvel. In spite of that broken rotor pod + missing window hatch, somebody took care of this long enough for me to stumble along.
Same markings as the "Launch Site" P3 including the same serial number, begging the question of what its purpose was ... ??
One good thing about this one is that its canopy had come off as well, giving me unfettered access to its chromed half an astronaut.
NEXT WEEK: BEZ FLYING A P3 SECURITY PATROL COPTER.
I could see a whole series of just Bez driving various outlandish vehicles and being Bez. I'd watch it every week and order the DVD.
... Looks like Darth Vader.
The poor package, which hey: Gives us access to its picture. Will get a scan together next time I'm at the studio.
If describing this for trade-in value at Rhino Records, my inventory slip would read "Blister appears to have been used as both a tennis racket and sponge", and consider it a score even in this stage. Back side shows how the Spacex and Golden Astronaut toy range was divided up into four "series": Launch Site, Space Probe, Moon Exploration, and Interplanetary Patrol. Blister design shows the three other 3-vehicle sets made for them, with other vehicles in those series as well.
Will have to find a minute to get the Golden Astronauts back in their nooks. Other than that, wrapped up, safe as a church, ready to be pinned back onto the Ogle Wall to be ogled.
Ohhhh MAN ............ I want to join the Golden Astronaut Club too!!! Or help re-found one.
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