Your friend from space...

Mechanical Shooting Man from Mars, Irwin, USA, 1952-1953

Hubley Fire Brigade ?

Ahrens-Fox fire (pump) engine, Hubley, USA, 1950's

I don't really collect fire engines, but this one caught my attentuion by the spectacular futuristic - art deco design of the toy. From the "chrome" sphere on front of the radiator, it should suposedly be a model of an Ahrens-Fox fire truck (1910-1977). Ahrens-Fox fire engines were produced in Ohio and were recognizable by the chromed sphere above the pump that held air and smoothed the outgoing pressure fluctuations from the piston pump.

See more about the Ahrens-Fox company here. And here.

May I smoke you ?

I finally got the coloured version of this fantastic Ray-Gun ! To see more about the grey version, click here.

Smoke Ring Gun, NU-AGE, USA, 1950's

With  more common grey version

Classic design !

A bunch of Archer repro's...

Spacemen + Spacewomen, Glencoe Models, 1991 USA

I Taut I Taw a Puddy-Tat

Sylvester, Rubbertoys, italy, 1970?

Flying birdmen ?

Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman, Bandai, Taiwan, 1990

Insane in the membrane, Insane in the ...

 Take an egg. Give it the diecast treatment. Put a little bit of arms, a little bit of legs and a revolving "eye" function and voilá... you got a robot. Not hard (boiled) really... OK, sorry for the pun. Was this thing capitalizing on the fame of Robocon and the likes ? Sure. But why not go along with a design that has proven itself before...

Brain III, Shinsei Kogyo Co. Ltd., Hong Kong, 1970's

Old School rubbers that will give you a punch !

Wonder Woman, NJCroce, China, 2016-17

Superman, NJCroce, China, 2016-17

Got to love the box !

Dan Dare Planet Gun, Merit, England, 1967-68

This gun came in black and in red also...

Astroboy's ride ?

Astroboy car (Tetsuwan Atom) - maker unknown (marked "17 "Falcon")
 Argentina ? Hong Kong ? - 1960's (?)

My favorite playset ?

The box is already a piece of art in itself, measuring a whopping 33 cm high on 60 cm wide... different sets were made, and were hand assembled with different spacecraft and figurines depending on the availability. Mine has 10 figurines and 3 spacecraft.

Figurines were stapled to the baseplate (thermovacuumed plastic) and spacecraft were held in place with rubber bands...long perished at this day and age.

Thunderbird 2 - silver version - is located in one of the craters...

Parker, Lady Penelope and Brains. The spying at the left, the engineering at the right.

...and of course you have the Hood, International Rescue's arch enemy that wants to steal the plans of the Thunderbirds craft and sell them to the highest bidder...

All figurines in my set were hand-painted,,, sometimes using the right colours of the TV show...

...and sometimes not !

The silver UFO is in fact a battery holder. (the old big chunky square ones...)

Here seen closed. The battery makes the translucid red star-shaped sattelite in the background blink. Groovy !

Thunderbird 4 got a two-tone paintjob ! 

El Alunizaje playset (Thunderbirds), Comansi, Spain, 1970's