Archer 1st Series Spacemen 'Men of Tomorrow' - Pt 1

I've wanted to hit the vintage spacemen this year and got a small start this past December when we did finally post a few vintage Premier Plastics spacemen (with more to follow - I hope). Now I believe we can get a fair start on this and we'll do that with the spacemen from Archer Plastics. 

Toys and Stuff featured Archer's space cars in February 2014 but they weren't in the space toy makin' business for very long. However, from 1952 to ca1956 they pumped out millions of figures, their first being the Men of Tomorrow. This first series consisted of seven 4" figures in bronze, silver, green, and purple metallic hard plastic. The seven poses are:

Walking holding rifle

Holding portable force field generator

Rifle at ready

Throwing grenade

Ray gun at ready

Walking

Robot

All the details like weapons, oxygen tanks, and hoses were molded into the figures but they did originally come with separate clear plastic helmets which shrunk over time and if the helmet was kept on the figure, made it impossible to take off. When new, the figures only cost 10 cents and were sold as bin toys or included in a variety of sets. 

We're goin' to post a figure a week - that'll help me get ready for upcoming posts. While I do have all seven poses, I don't have all four colors for all seven poses - that's goin' to take quite some time IF I decide to try and get them all :-) So let's get started. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Lido No. 11 Fire Engine

Today's another Fire and Emergency Vehicle Friday and we're featuring a nice little Nifty '50s engine from Lido, the No. 11 Pumper. This one is a little scratchy and a portion of the front bumper is off but overall it's a nice looking little piece measuring 3 11/16" (9.4cm) L x 1 3/8" (3.5cm) W x 1" (2.5cm) H which makes it about 1/64th scale. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Shown here with a Thomas Toys pick-up truck

Marx - Marxville Accessories - Pt 8

Our next installment of Marx 3-rail O-gauge train accessories includes:

#416A Floodlight Tower, Twin Lights
#417 Bell Ringing Crossing Signal
#421 Crossing Signal w-Flashing Lights
#428 Automatic Crossing Gate
#0430 Railroad Accessory Set

Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

#416A Floodlight Tower, Twin Lights

These came with red and black towers with black platforms and bases. I'm unaware of any other color combinations.

#417 Bell Ringing Crossing Signal

These came in silver-gray and black hard plastic

#421 Crossing Signal w-Flashing Lights

These came in silver-gray and black hard plastic

#428 Automatic Crossing Gate

I'm afraid the photo below is quite bad. It was actually taken waaay back in 2009 before the blog was even started as a means of keeping track of my budding Marx collection

An early attempt at Photoshopping.

#0430 Railroad Accessory Set

Another old photo. Marx was real good at taking accessories and re-packaging them in a number of different sets. These accessories were also included in a variety of their 3-rail O-gauge train sets