My Space Buckets character inspired by the scene from "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" when John Cleese's waiter asks the diner if he'd prefer to have his selections served individually? or all mixed up in a bucket. Which is what they do with these Hing Fat toy sets, in a way. Mix spacemen, space craft and terrain features up into a big bucket kids can store them in between sessions.
This bucket release by Daron Worldwide Trading Inc. obtained from TinToyArcade.com ($18 shipped: look for their free 1st time shipping coupon code) is a bit light with 20 pieces -- 13 astronauts, one shuttle, one lunar lander, one flag with stand, one playmat -- but is a key to understanding how these sets are generated. Hing Fat presses the plastics at the plant on mainland China, sells the pieces in bulk from their Hong Kong headquarters to companies like Daron who specialize in repackaging other people's product, and they then select a bucket form with their own packaging art which does not mention where the plastics came from. Tip-off being the HING FAT TOY copyright on the mat.
I spent some time last week on the internet trying to find other sealed/new examples of the Space Bucket form and this is the only current issuing I was able to find using ordinary search methods. All others including the 65 piece SCS Direct "Big Bucket of Astronauts" appear to have been discontinued or marked as sold out / unavailable. Which makes me wonder: Does Hing Fat maybe churn out a warehouse full of these every couple four years and only press them when stocks run low? Would help explain certain attributes like the varying type of plastics used from set to set, the change in markings or other subtle differences which were adopted between pours.
One fascinating quirk with this set is that when compared to the LEM lander vehicle from the used set I've had since winter allegedly produced in the mid 80s is that their ascent stages are not interchangeable.
Left: "New" LEM
Right: Mid 80s.
Left: "New" LEM
Right: Mid 80s.
The peg marks have been re-positioned, and the top step in the "dome" which crowns the ascent stage with its rabbit eared antennae has been widened. The newer LEM pieces also don't fit as snugly, with the thruster bits actually rattling when shaken. The older LEM doesn't, but it also doesn't have that funky mechanical looking decal on the descent stage face plate, so I'll take it.
Wish they'd gone with a Lunar Roving Vehicle rather than a Space Shuttle, which never went to the moon but was probably cheaper for Daron's acquisition of the bulk components. The current flag also features a decal on one side only, as do two of the other three flags in my stash. The only one with decals on both sides was the flag which came with the "Lot" acquisition which included the lander & rover vehicles believed to be from the mid 80s.
Ehhh ...
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