RENDEZVOUS IN ORBIT

 One of the most exciting things I noticed as a boy, growing up in the space race, was the close connection between toys and the space books, that I loved. Obviously there were the marketing tie ins with TV series and toys and annuals, but every now and again, I would find a toy that was 'unofficially' based on a NASA design or illustration from the pages of one of my favourite books.

 

The two main culprits for this were Project SWORD toys and Triang Spacex, but other companies such as sweet and cereal producers took advantage of the wealth of space imagery in the news at the time.

This was great news for me, as I could easily obtain actual models and toys based on the fabulous machines I was seeing in the books. It would be many years later, after the advent of the internet and the publication of Moonbase Central blog, that I would finally be able to identify the connections between the toys and their respective origins, but at the time, it was an intriguing mystery for me to pursue.

Kelloggs Space Age Miniatures and Triang Spacex Molabs

Even today, part of the drive to find early space books is the hope that in their pages, I will discover more illustrations which relate to my favourite toy lines. Most of the origins have now been established, after several years of dilligent research by the Moonbase Central team, and they are available on the blog, but there are still plenty of connections to be made.

Easily one of the best examples of referencing material is the excellent 1964  Time Life book 'Man and Space', with text by Arthur C. Clarke and illustrations by Ed Valigursky. Aside from being a wonderful primer for the space programme, it contains some absolutely lavish full colour paintings, which clearly influenced the design of the Project SWORD and SPACEX toy ranges.

The book has several large painted illustrations by Valigursky, which were the direct inspiration for space toys in the sixties, made by both Triang and Century 21, who both had connections with the Gerry Anderson franchises.

Unproduced Sword Moonbase Playset

Valigursky's Moon Base

I first came across the book in the local library and marvelled at the gorgeous painted interpretations of the Explorer MEV 2 and Booster Rocket. Shortly after I became a contributor to the Moonbase Central blog, I became aware of several books which had a strong connection to the toy world and Man and Space was one of the main referents. It then became a mission to try and find these books for sale, so I searched ebay and other second hand book sites to find them. Luckily, the Time Life series had a wide publication, so it was fairly simple to find a good copy.

Valigursky's Moon Vehicle and Spacex MEV2 toys

I had owned a copy of the Project SWORD annual since its release in 1968 and was very familiar with the amazing artwork and actually owned some of the toys. The advent of ebay and internet research made it practical to obtain more of the toys and a second copy of the annual, as my own had suffered over the years.

Once more Valigurskys paintings had been used as the basis for toy designs, as the Sword and Spacex Booster Rocket toys clearly show.

Valigurskys Booster Rocket 

One of the most enigmatic toys from the Project Sword range was the Nuclear Ferry. This was shown in the product catalogue which came with each toy and was widely advertised in comics, but was never available in the stores.

Once more, it appeared in print, initially I discovered it in an edition of Look and Learn magazine, but I discovered much later that it had already appeared in Life magazine around 1966 and the illustration was by Robert McCall. Again, many years later a toy appeared on Yahoo auctions Japan, the only instance of the toy ever seen. Since that date in the mid 2000's, only four models have been found, one of which I am very lucky to own.

The Triang Spacex series also included a small plastic version of the craft too, which also surfaced for the first time around 2004. It would be around this time that I contacted David Portree who ran the 'Beyond Apollo' space blog and he identified the design as being a proposal by Ling Temco Vought for a nuclear shuttle, which McCalls original painting in Life magazine illustrated and which became the inspiration for both toys.

There are many other instances of toys and models copying or referencing book illustrations, both intentionally and without acknowledgement. Hong Kong toy companies were notorious for blatantly lifting pictures and applying them to toy packaging. Even other book publishers re-used existing illustrations, or slavishly copied them for their own use. See this full page illustration for an extreme environment space suit, originally shown in 'Man and Space' but copied for the 'Daily Mirror Book of Space'.