On his old website, Gibson had a nice review of some archaic plastic spaceman toys.

A company called Glencoe found the molds for these and has recreated them.

They're very odd items, molded from metallic-looking plastic. The figures are very stark looking, a bit like illustrations from pulp magazines.

Look near the bottom of the page below for "1940s Spacemen, Spacewomen, and Robots":

http://fetco1.homestead.com/Glencoe.html

If Mr. Gibson reads this: Please repost those neat toy reviews!

Stefan Jones

Excellent toys! They sell in a box with neat artwork, havent opened mine yet because dont want to ruin it!
They are better than the over
designed/over priced toys of today.

Open the box, RUR! Quick, before Collectoritis consumes you and takes your sanity. :-)

If you want to preserve the box art, do what I do:

Using an exacto knife, neatly slice an "X" through the shrinkwrap on the bottom of the box. This will let you slide out the bottom box "tray."

Use transparent tape to affix the flaps of shrinkwrap to the inside of the box top.

The toys are worth looking and at playing with, embodying a very alien concept of what the future would be about. Makes you wonder how kids played with them. Did they have toy spaceships available, or did they have to make them out of Quaker Oatmeal tins and bits of cardboard?

Stefan

You are right! Sad is the fate of the collector.
I have to avoid that ugly fetishist angle!
They are cool spacemen indeed, kind of remaind me of those Marx toys/Mercury 1/35 scale plastic astronauts we used to play with during the late 60s.
Maybe the 50s kids played with the spacemen and the Lindbergh brand plastic flyng saucer model kit made/sold around that time.
About the box,
I think I'll also scan it.
"Digital is 4 evr". Hmmm...Maybe I'll print a tshirt! Cool!

Just an FYI, Glencoe also reproduced that old flying saucer plastic model.

And some other models of 1940s / 50s space ship concepts, like the Werner von Braun Space Ferry.

I actually bought some of these, intending to build them. Then I got kind of embarassed. Having a mantle or shelf full of archaic rocket ships . . . . kind of nerdy. It's bad enough having a box of Estes models in the closet.

before they invented video games.
The scent of burnt black powder...The paracute opening...WOW!
Regular cardboard Korolevs we were.
I wish I had kept mine!