Started This Year's Haunted Village (aka Spooky Town) Halloween Set-up - Pt 1

This week I started pulling out my Halloween stuff for this year's Spooky Town display. All regular work on my Milwaukee North Western layout will be on hold until after the season. Here are the first pics o taken after the initial set-up and it's a sure thing this will likely change in the days to come. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

New Paper Project For Halloween: The Ancient Church Of Two Towers Paper Model

Welll, I started another paper model project for Halloween: The Ancient Church Of Two Towers Paper Model. 

For the past couple of years I had been using this haunted gothic church from Ravensblight.com but it's really small - more appropriate for N-scale trains and figures -  and I really wanted something a bit 'cozier' as it were.

After a quick search on the web I came across this project by Mauther in Brazil on his excellent site Papermau.blogspot.com  It's a site which I am familiar with, but during that past few years my interest in paper modeling had been waning so I haven't visited Mauther for some time now.

Specifically, the model itself can be found here:  The Ancient Church of Two Towers  

The dimensions look to be about right for a 3-rail O-gauge layout and the church itself is small - 'cozy' - with just enough hint of dilapidation to pass for spooky. By all rights this should have been finished by now but there's just not enough time to get out in The Cave and work on projects. Till next time - Enjoy! Opa Fritz

MPC Playset No. 1101 Operation Arctic Defense

I could've sworn I posted this playset before, but after some sleauthing it looks like tht didn't happen. Okay, here it is now. Got this really cool set some time ago but it, like several other playsets around here, has been waiting in the wings to see the light of day on the blog.

As you can see, the box is really rough but,by looking at the set photo, appears to be quite complete and is definitely among MPC's larger sets. The variety of figures and accessories in this playset is excellent: helicopter, DUKW, missile launch pad, MPC's space figures and accessories, arctic figures and accessories. For MPC this is an awesome set!! This was also the first MPC set I bought with that hard-to-find Whirlybird type helicopter. It still needs some research, but based on the instruction sheet it does appear that the odd mix of spacemen and arctic troops is correct for this set.

Enjoy! Opa Fritz

I'll have to do a separate photo essay post on this helicopter

Here's the original bags the parts were contained in

Miner Industries Playset No. 1753 Army Action Squadron Task Force - Set #3

Here's the third unopened Army Action Squadron playset I bought over this past year-&-half or so and, like the one posted yesterday, this has the later Payton casts. The figure/vehicle count is sightly different but they are all the same type. The photos don't show it that well, but these are a very light mint green and with the darker casts from yesterday's set the two make great opposing forces. Those Batman style "POW", "BAM" graphics are a bit corny but, ummm but - give me time, I'm trying to think of something positive to say here - but they're, ummm colorful! Yeah, that's it - they're colorful! 

Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Miner Industries Playset No. 1753 Army Action Squadron Task Force - Set #2

Back on March 2nd, I posted a Miner Industries Army Action Squadron playset. Over the past year and half I tried my luck and actually bought three of these MIB, still sealed sets. Two of the sets were sealed in clear plastic wrap while the third simply had been taped. That first set posted in March hit the jackpot with it's VHTF all white Mobile Missile Launcher and set contents that matched up well enough with the box cover photo. These next sets aren't nearly as exciting but are still cool in their own way. Nothing in the next two sets I'll be posting match up with the box cover photo. Well, lets just have the photos speak for themselves. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

After some discussion on the facebook groups, it was concluded that the figures and vehicles are original Payton - not repos. However they are later castings than the ones we normally associate as being from the 1960s.

This reply is from noted plastic and playset collector Kent Owen Sprecher which explains how Payton pieces ended up in a Miner Industries box (quote used with permission):

Miner Industry Playsets

Kent Owen Sprecher

Those are actual Payton. About 1972/3 Payton and Premier were taken over by a group of investors who set up a shell corporation WINNECO to run things. They failed and t all ended up in court. HG Toys ended up buying both companies in the later 1970s. In the 1980s, HG, Miner (MPC), DFC and Helm all made playsets to grab the market share after Marx went under. It seems some stuff was shared and a bunch of figures and empty boxes were found in warehouses. In the late 1980s a man whose name I forget got a lot of Miner Industries boxes and filled them up with what he could find. Excalibur got a bunch of these sets. I show the contents of three "Miner" photo box prehistoric sets I got at my website. None of them contained any Miner (MPC) dinosaurs but had Ajax & Nabisco animals and a mix of DFC, Marx reissue & MPC reissue cavemen. https://www.angelfire.com/biz/toysoldierhq/MPCanc.html

Marx No. 1726 Kennedy Space Center Astronaut

I'm still finding photos on the computer that haven't been edited yet. I spent yesterday evening editing this set of photos dsating back to 2018. This MarxAstronaut was sold as a souvenir at the Kennedy Space Center, although mine was bought off of fleaBay. This thing got sold off a couple of years ago because it just didn't fit in with my particular space toy interests, but it's still kind of a neat piece. Unfortunately I never got around to scanning the booklet that came with it - oh well. The figure is essentially Marx's Johnny Apollo action figure repackaged for the Kennedy Space Center and measures 7 3/8" (17.78cm) H. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

ADDED INFO

the off-color, more 'greenish' gold pieces (two shown lower left, and the pistol) are not Marx-issue pieces, and didn't come with this set