Billy V Toys "Space Exploration" 60+ Piece Hing Fat Astronaut Bucket Playset by Imex Models Inc.

UPDATE 10/01/19: Two emails to the Imex Models customer service contact about exchanging the set have gone unanswered. I will call the number offered on their site but after two weeks since delivery am not hopeful the request to exchange will be honored. Which I guess is a lesson on why it's preferable to purchase from a retail outlet held accountable by customer satisfaction than hope for the best from a corporate front. I will make further note on how productive the phone call goes.

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So I wanted to see what the current modern day Space Bucket set is like in its entirety and after finding NO LONGER AVAILABLE notices on pretty much all retail outlets known to carry such things turned to Imex Models for their packaging of the set under their Billy V Toys label. And it's just as expected with a couple of fun-wrecking flaws, most important of which is the absence of a playmat surface that the young space adventurer would place his figures & vehicles. The set also had some secondary issues which I'm going to act on by requesting a return for exchange: Cracked rocket housings and missing thruster nozzle pieces make the Baby Jesus in me cry. 

Your typical Space Bucket set components: 1 lunar lander, 1 lunar rover, 2 US flags, one multi-part space station, forty-nine gray cast astronaut figures ... And two space shuttles, which never went anywhere near the moon, were grounded and the program discontinued after two of them exploded, killing all of their occupants. They aren't fun, and if you ask me the shuttle is an enduring cultural symbol of failure, corruption and negligence. Which may be exactly why a Chinese based toy company insists on producing them en masse to be sold in airport newspaper kiosks or grocery stores. 

WHERE WAS I ... Forty nine figures sounds one shy of fifty, and with a missing thruster nozzle for the LEM I'm inclined to think my set was boxed up towards the end of a rather long day at the plant.

Otherwise nice rocket of seeming Russian or Chinese design. I like these rockets and was stoked to score a couple more ...

... But this will not do. It's one thing to buy broken rockets off e-B4y from a vendor selling off a junk drawer lot, another to have them come new from the factory direct from their domestic distributor.

Neither will a missing directional thruster nozzle, without of which the spacecraft is in jeopardy of ending up in Gimbal Lock, tumbling out of control.

Nope. Set is currently boxed up and awaiting an RMA number from Imex-Models.com. Add the return postage cost to the price of the set + shipping/tax ($33) and we're rolling up towards $45; If charged for shipping the replacement, $50+. Am hoping that a sympathetic customer service associate opts to just send out another set: We'll see.

Left: Billy V's rover with gray astronauts.

Right: Unknown vintage rover with white astronauts.

In the meantime we can at last compare a current production copy of Hing Fat's enjoyable Lunar Roving Vehicle with a "vintage" example believed to be dated to the mid 80s. And please note that I fixed the vintage rig up with an older style antenna believed to be from a 1970s produced set. Other then that and my lame attempt at color correction of my cell cam pix the two vehicles appear to be the same with no evident casting changes.

Current.

"Vintage".

One difference: The chassis of the Billy V vehicle has a warp to it, making it impossible to have all four wheels touch a flat surface. Believe me, I tried, and that's about when I decided it was appropriate to ask for an exchange. See what comes out of the pipe next time as an evaluation of quality control.

We can also compare its spacemen to those I'd previously had including another "current production" figure from the nifty Daron Worldwide Trading 20 piece "Space Exploration Set" (identified by the lump of putty on his base to tell them apart). I chose the often overlooked Lunchbox Guy, arranged here left to right in their presumed reverse order of manufacture: Billy V; Daron Worldwide; unknown white casting presumed from 80s; unknown gray casting presumed from 70s; another unknown gray casting presumed from 70s with box chest unit. All the others have a round shape where the box unit should be. Their facial characteristics of the three vintage pieces on the right are also very different then the two modern figures on the left. And the white casting is smaller than all of the others.

L to R: Billy V, Daron Worldwide, unknown white, unknown gray, unknown gray. Notice how the angle of their leaning to the right varies.

Markings on their bases, same L to R arrangement. White figure's base stamped only with the word CHINA.

Left: Billy V

Right: Daron Worldwide

Billy V's appears slimmer and has more space between his legs.

Same as above.

Left: Billy V

Center: Unknown (presumed) 1970s

Right: Daron Worldwide

Left: Billy V

Center: Unknown (presumed) 1970s

Right: Daron Worldwide

Note the tightness of detail on the face of the figure at center who also has a square chest unit.

Left: Vintage 70s

Center: Vintage 80s

Right: Vintage 70s

The same order for the sitter/pilot figures, omitting a Daron Worldwide example as their set did not come with one (nor a lunar rover for him to be sat upon, which makes sense).

Left: Billy V

Right: 80s (presumed)

Left: Billy V

Right: 70s

Left: Billy V

Right: 70s

Wish I'd though to get pix of the space station which is actually pretty cool but they are boxed up and I am eager make the swap. Expect an update on how Imex does in addressing my need for a pristine set & count on me to be fair about it no matter what the outcome.

Eleven Years of MOONBASE CENTRAL, The Project Sword Toys Blog

Happy 11th Anniversary, Moonbase Central!

Paul Woods is cool. Sent me an email over the summer encouraging my efforts here at crafting a space toy blog and indeed stumbling across his Moonbase Central blog celebrating the history of the British PROJECT SWORD legacy of toys and media was a principal source of inspiration to fueling my insatiable appetite for "NASA era" Made In Hong Kong space plastics. "NASA era" meaning the very early 1960s through mid to late 1970s: Most of the online resources oriented towards vintage space toys focuses on the Golden era of Atom Age Buck Rogers & Flash Gordon art deco space forms. Finding stuff made during the span of my life set me off. Was born in 1967 (52 years of age as of this posting) and became a toy consumer during the waning years of the Apollo Program 1971 - 1973. Learning that the forms produced during that era were just as special was of great reassurance and showed me a colorful formed plastic alternate reality into which my imagination was quickly assimilated.

And there's SO much from that era to discover, the bulk of it seeming to revolve around the very early creation of "Project Sword", which if my understanding is correct was an offshoot of British visionary Gerry Anderson's media empire specifically created to facilitate toy production of forms which went beyond "The Thunderbirds" into a darker region of fantasy which is enjoyably at odds with the optimistic and child-oriented world of Anderson's television projects. The most obvious result of the experiment were the space toy forms created by British firm Triang, historically better known for their marvelous (and often functional) toy train products. 

Triang adapted some of the vehicles featured in the early Project Sword media comic book form releases into an incredible line of toys which are startlingly unique, modern and lethal-looking when held up next to their American made counterparts of the era. In the middle to later part of the 1960s the Project Sword toys were re-adapted into smaller budget line pieces which served as the bases for the Spacex toy range (for British & European markets) and Golden Astronaut line (for North American markets) which in my opinion serve as the pinnacle form of the low-cost plasticized Made In Hong Kong space toys which I was familiar with as a lad.

I was too young for Spacex & Golden Astronaut, being all of four years of age come 1971 when the toy lines fell into decline, five years old in 1972 when production of all but the copies and ripoffs of the Sx/GA toys had disappeared. I never had a scrap of any of it, or if I did the pieces were destroyed so quickly and completely that those purchasing toys for me didn't go back for more. 1972 also saw the introduction of the American Consumer Protection Act which amongst other things pretty much forbade toys which launched small hard plastic projectiles, had firing pins or other devices which kids could use to put each other's eyes out, choke on, or otherwise inflict lawsuit inviting injury upon themselves -- All of which were the bread and butter of not just the Spacex creations but important (and now hotly contested over) forms created by Marx Toys and Multiple Toymakers which were designed to let kids launch rockets across the room.

The fun wrecking mitigated somewhat by the emergence of the G.I. Joe "Adventure Team" toys which became the focus of my 6 year old imagination by Christmas 1973. Space toys fell out of favor after, the static representations of astronauts engaged in exploration work not being able to hold a candle to G.I. Joe excavating mummy tombs, piloting semi-functional helicopters, probing the ocean depths and then the Kung-Fu grip. My interest in space toys re-ignited briefly by Kenner's "Star Wars" franchise but by the summer of 1978 I was listening to Queen records, wanted an electric guitar, and had developed a fascination with girls. Toy collecting in general sat on a lower shelf in the refrigerator of life until last winter when searching for artistic inspiration & stumbling upon Hot Wheels cars in the modest toy section of a local grocery store. 

They were little painted sculptures on wheels, strikingly decorated and usually departing from reality in ways which are immediately engaging. An early vision for the "Toy Project" this blog concerns itself with was constructing a race track for the art gallery I manage to race artist-painted cars down its length. I'd still like to, but ran into a brick wall with collecting die cast cars round about February due to our Central New York location -- We don't get "new releases" here, and Hot Wheels + Matchbox fandom are wrapped up in New Release Frenzy. They don't just make the same 200 cars every year, and every month there are releases of newly designed Mattel vehicles which you simply have to stay on top of. You also need to accessorize with track components, devices to make the cars not just move but keep moving once in motion, and all of it costs money. I was going to write a grant to raise money to pay for a gallery-length track, materials to construct it and a carpenter to help me make it modular enough to take to other locations.

I still may, though at current I am more content to let the toy forms seep into my art and less with arbitrarily preparing for an exhibit. And round about last February decided I needed to add figurative elements to the images I was making as digital pictures, and decided to create the juxtaposition of these far-out looking semi space vehicles with astronauts next to them. Long story short is that I went on a quest one weekend to find spacemen forms which involved several trips to various retail toy outlets to find anything suitable. I ended up buying a couple blocks of oven-bake clay, intending to just make my own damn spacemen, before quite by chance coming across a listing for some on the well-known online auction platform. The result was an instant change in perspective about not just what interested me as an artist but a conflict with contemporary consumer culture, which for the most part is no longer interested in celebrating the exploration of outer space. The matter worsened somewhat by our own NASA's miserable track record with their Space Shuttle program which I openly despise. We have to hitch rides with the Russians now just to get to the ISS. 

So it's no wonder nobody is stocking Space Bucket astronaut sets -- Only Lego (and their copyists) seems interested in making space toy creations. You have to go "vintage", and within a week or two of landing my first space figure acquisitions I knew the Hot Wheels thing was over for me. A couple months of initial acquisition of spacemen just for use in art had a side-effect of igniting within me a passion to reclaim the long lost space toys I'd had as a kid. I wanted more, not just to use in my art but to have an example of each, or at least each of those which interested me. And time after time the forms which were catching my eye were those made during the 1960 - 1975 glory era of NASA's Go Fever. And of them the ones which really made me squirm in my seat were the colorful cheap Made In Hong Kong toys like the Triang designed Spacex / Golden Astronaut toy ranges. By May it was all space toys all the time, and I began to ravenously consume online resources to try and find the ones which would loan themselves best to the space art visions which had been waiting in the 'fridge all this time.

Three websites (or web forums) became the primary hunting grounds for ideas: The stupendous Space Toy Index at Alphadrome, Paul Vreede's Triang Spacex / Golden Astronaut website, and Paul Woods' Moonbase Central, the latter simply overflowing with enthusiasm for the collecting habit and bursting with pictures to fuel any overgrown spaceboy's wildest dreams. I cannot see enough of the stuff and will likely never be able to afford to have the real standout pieces created. So the websites are important, not just for suggesting which forms to track down but serving as a compendium of imagery that will help make do until it's within my grasp to obtain a complete "Operation Moon Base", identify those pieces I can manage to latch onto, and trace the lineage of their design elements back to common sources. The ultimate goal of the Space Trucks project isn't just a gallery exhibit, it's designing my own space toy forms. I'm starting to get an idea for what I want to see and look forward to my "Toy Hour" every evening when I can sit down, pull out a few pieces, arrange them in some manner suggesting a pulp scifi moment and get some pix. The best get saved to be painted in some manner.

Those coming of age in our culture haven't for the most part been trained to buy art. They want consumer products including toys which harken back to their own childhood; Major Matt Mason is the hottest collectible around. Sixty dollar starting price for a figure in OK condition, double that for one like it came out of the box. Quadruple it to add the box, and it is people my own age who had the toys as kids who are driving the prices. The Project Sword creations are also red hot, and so gorgeously perfect in their combination of space exploration with military applications that I can't let myself even THINK about wanting any just yet. But we can look at them.

Unknown Plastic Robot Figure, Made In China, Maybe a Game Piece? Help Us Out!

Still an unknown, any help with an ID give us a shout in comments below. Hard tan colored plastic painted yellow and then with red details. Only markings are CHINA and a backwards #3.

Maybe a game piece? And I'm wondering if the backwards number indicates it's a bootleg.

He's a favorite! Would love to know what he is, and you can comment anonymously, no need to sign in.

Imperial Toy Corp. "Apollo Moon Exploring" No.304k with the Disney RM-1 Rocket & Miniature "Major Matt Mason" Satellite Launcher Sled

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Here we go again -- Attrition Week continues here at the Space Garage with the arrival of a second unit of Imperial Toy Corporation's ridiculous "Apollo Moon Exploring" set No.304k, obtained so I can finally open either one of the two to utilize the very cool rocket ship included in my space art. As the video attests, my enthusiasm for the condition of the new arrival's superb condition backing card and blister package incited my overlooking damage to its upper right engine nacelle, cracked off to the point of being backwards in the package. And that for ten awful minutes of my life was convinced that I had inflicted the damage while trying to wrap the entire package up in an acid free polyvinyl storage bag meant for comic books ...

D'oh?

Actually NO, as the ineptly prepared image from the vendor's e-Bay listing attests. Any suspicion that the seller had purposefully uploaded a deliberately blurred image to disguise the flaw are instantly mitigated by the comically bizarre nature of the transaction; Just from our all to brief interaction I can confirm that was pretty much the best picture that the vendor could manage at all. And was sufficient to demonstrate which AME set it was & that all of the components were included. I did manage to wheedle a discount on it by purchasing two sets they had listed -- which is when the transaction started going to Weirdsville: a transcript of our communications would make fascinating reading -- and in the end am content knowing simply that I did get the right rocket, will have one to open for my art, and won't be back for more. The idea of trying to facilitate a return is daunting given the perceived cognitive limits of the vendor's cranial capacity. More hassle then its worth, better to just keep the damn thing as it was exactly what I'd wanted. Just not how I'd wanted it.

So instead, the issue turns to one of which set to open: The new arrival with its sweet looking card but broken rocket nacelle (A) or the unit I'd already had with its compromised card but (more or less) intact rocket? And while you're processing your own thoughts on it, let's learn more about the "Apollo Moon Exploring" series by visiting the reference page for them at Commodore Vreede's Triang Spacex / Golden Astronaut website, which you can read by clicking here. The specific post on AME 304K is 2nd from the bottom.

Then, click here for the Sx/GA website's reference page for LP Toys' simplified copy of the Major Matt Mason satellite launching moon sled.

And then click here to visit the Sx/GA website's reference page for AME 304k's RM-1 rocket, also a product made by LP, who not only produced all of the toy forms used in the Apollo Moon Exploring series, but also manufactured the spaceman figures for the Spacex & Golden Astronaut toy lines. They kept busy!

Set A's Major Matt Mason satellite launching moon sled. It's a static copy which does not launch anything on chinsy little wheels, but has its own unique astronaut figure.

Set A's RM-1 rocket.

Mehh.

Set A's Golden Astronaut figure which does have the correct LP Toys markings on its base.

"They Really Work" at just sitting there doing nothing. Most fascinating point of the packaging being that the toy range title has encouraged some vendors to list the units they have for sale as Apollo Program space memorabilia. It isn't.

The exciting data on Imperial. I am getting no less then four different fonts off that printing.

Illustrating the dilemma of the choice: Example A in the foreground with its superb (for a $.39 cent rack toy made in 1970) condition card but broken rocket, or B in the background with its curled up crinkled and water damaged card but intact rocket.

Which would you open? And my issue rests on which one will then be tacked up onto the Ogle Wall to be looked at & thought about while the components of the set which is opened are boxed up with my other loose LP Toys vehicles. Which will bug me less? Having the broken rocket on the wall, or having the compromised package on the wall?

Set B's bent forward nose assembly, which from experience might be more of a delicate job to re-fit then simply gluing the cracked nacelle from set A back in place. The plastic of this rocket also slightly discolored from adhesive overflow which has turned dark over the 50 years since the set was slabbed.

Set B's Golden Astronaut in an identical pose to set A's, likewise marked with the LP logo and with a slightly stronger gold hue. The dye hasn't faded as badly.

Set B's crinkled & crumpled blister plastic. Original intention had been to just slice it all away and remove as much of the plastic as possible to enable a hi-rez flatbed scan of the blister card artwork.

And let's do it: Here are the backs of the two blister card, set A in well-cared for condition and set B having been used as a sponge at some point during its existence.

ISN'T THIS EXCITING??? YES!!!

YES!

Will post up any results of whatever decision is made driving between Utica and Syracuse studio locations, which is how I usually do my best thinking.