Been a fan of the Palmer Plastics spaceman series since the first instant I saw em -- The astronauts have a Gemini Program look to them, and are wearing actual pressure suits rather than skin-tight flight suit. I like how chunky they are compared to their better known bean-pole scrawny MPC/Hong Kong contemporaries. Made in the USA for a change! And telling of their likely age is that the examples I've seen only appear garbed for flight, not for lunar surface EVA, dating them 1968 or earlier (which I believe is when the Palmer factory went up in smoke). I've seen them as a bagged set with marvelous header card, a couple of space capsule pieces and a Space Chimp or three.
Painted guy on the end is interesting, as his plastic looks to be of a very different hue of yellow. If a kid did that he/she was good, and if the factory did that I want more, though I have never seen other painted examples.
Palmer figures did not have base plates to make sure they stand up and play wear has put some of mine off-balance. So most of these have a little dab of sticky putty on their boot soles for the pix session.
YO!
Some may end up in collage pieces, though mostly they are for diorama picture setups.
Heh ... Aww. Doesn't look too happy. Must have missed out on John Young's corned beef sandwich. Or maybe this is Captain Young testifying before the congressional committee of stuffed shirts who investigated the incident ... ?? A simple reprimand would have sufficed. He cleaned up his act too. Flew one of every US made manned spaceflight variants to date other than the Mercury Program vehicles. The Astronaut's Astronaut.
A closer look at the Palmer's. The face of the dude looking up is very tight. Nice work.
Hey, you need Ground Crew or the spacemen aren't going anywhere.
Now for the MPC guys, and after looking at them in person for about twenty seconds was convinced almost beyond a doubt that they were alterations made by a prior owner. Likely male and between the ages of 6 and 10, doing exactly what I would have done if I'd thought of it. And probably did do, as one can see all three are missing hands. Two have no equipment. The painting is also roughly applied & inconsistent: Two have dots to indicate helmet details, one has eyebrows.
Two were orange castings, one blue. All marked with MPC stamp, and it is interesting how one of the stamps appears to have been purposefully defaced.
Am pretty sure he should be holding a pistol in one hand & his lunch box in the other.
D'oh. Did the same & worse to mine!
This should be my favored Rope & Triangle guy in mid-step. Hands hacked off and the painting extended over his stumps. No way MPC would have clipped off their equipment prior to painting.
This one has its pistol but missing his lunchbox. Paint very thickly applied on torso ...
... And our little Rembrandt carved off his oxygen tanks. I did worse! and this trio can be used in collaged works.
The Big Guy, and the fourth of six figures from the set which I've been able to acquire. First offered up by Marx starting late 1969 in response to the worldwide Moon Fever for space toys having anything to do with the Apollo program. Had em all as a kid! and managed to destroy them, which as one can see would take serious dedicated work. All were ash canned in the later 70s when we were compelled to throw our older broken toys away by unsympathetic powers--that-be.
These things are big, chunky and meant to survive basic play use. So we took ours to the next level and from the looks of this one somebody's dog had the same impulse.
Classic dog chew damage: That front tooth gouge was quite the fang. Poor lil' Sheba probably waited patiently for her chance to latch onto this baby & give it a good gnaw. Every time she saw it she'd be like, "Oooo ... Yeah. Mine." One day somebody didn't put their Space Toys away. Ten unsupervised minutes while Mom was making lunch and it was a junk-drawer relic. Delighted to have him regardless!
;[
Heh ... But with the Marx stamp and worth the bargain basement price I scored it for. Can be supplanted by a better-conditioned example & used as a 3d element in a space collage. A big one too.
The four six-inches I've scored to date. Still need Square Scoop Guy and Flag Dude, which are proving the hardest to find in un-compromised condition as those features were relatively easy to destroy -- I vividly recall carving the flag off mine with a steak knife. Took a couple sessions, was a mess & regretted the effort. And everybody twisted their square scoop off or they just weren't with the program. Even the smaller orange reduced size figure I found is missing his square scoop.
Marx did a series of smaller 2.25"/70mm sized castings of the same poses (plus others) in both white and optic orange for their post-1970 space playsets. Will do another gripping post examining how they stand up in comparison.
Thought it was worthwhile to note that unless very specifically stated, nothing I show on this blog is for sale. I am showing pieces which I have obtained for not just collecting purposes but to use as the departure point for artworks. Much of it photography based for now, but I do plan to start creating 3d type artworks which include some of the small rockets shown & a couple of spacemen. These are raw materials just as important as the paints, brushes, surfaces and framing supplies. And I don't want just anything, with my tastes as a collector now guiding which forms are obtained.
Typical range for me as a collector. Pre-1978, pre Space Shuttle. Hong Kong, Britain/Europe, Marx, Palmer/Lido, with an ongoing obsession with NASA's Manned Spaceflight program and in particular the Grumman Lunar Module. Plus whatever looks cool from those years. Like tanks, scuba divers, and obscure die cast space vehicles.
Eleven years old in 1978, pix by my mom who is an artist as well. Would like to re-stage the shot with a newly built kit if we could find a match for that checkered table cloth ...
I'm a Boxing collector, in that I keep my stuff boxed up unless in specific use. Plus obsessively wrapped in ziplock with bubble wrap when appropriate. I live to put my toys away, and enjoy re-arranging how they are boxed as much as just gazing at them.
Utica NY studio with New Old Stock items to ogle. Got tired of dragging them back & forth and risking mishap, which is why I tend to collect loose/out of the packet: I want to care for the toys not the packaging material, unless it's something really really special ;]
Up to now most of my diorama shots are either done on a dresser in the bedroom with a marvelous green finish, or here on my desk using a DVD rack placed behind the computer screen as a stage. Here i'm ogling the Marx "Lunar Explorers" set, but when doing pix I'll first dress the surface up with some of the small rocks & pieces of brick kept on the desktop. Then select a vehicle or two, a few figures to add the Human Element, and shoot a few dozen images using a Macro lens setting to confuse the eye about scale.
Alternate Mint On Card wall at my Syracuse NY studio room in my dad's stylish basement. It has windows.
