Processed Plastic Co. Titan Rocket aka ICBM Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

With this addition to the Processed Plastic Spaceship / Rocket Ship fleet I believe I have all the major variations in regards to the styles they made BUT not in regard to the type and placement in applique's. I'll explain in a second or two. If you've been following the mini-series I ended up doing on Processed Plastic rocket variations. The below photo shows pretty much what I've covered to-date. This latest addition differs in that the final stage of the rocket has a very small spring-loaded nose cone with a teen, tiny satellite! Good grief those things had to have gotten lost pretty soon after buying one of these!! The rocket measures 11 1/4" (28.57cm) H overall and 2 1/2" (6.35cm) wide fin-to-fin. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Processed Plastic played pretty fast and loose with that 'Titan' designation, plastering it on larger rockets as well as my smaller version. Look at the wide variety of applique's and how they're used on the different variations. As usual with toy companies, historical accuracy was not a prerequisite for designing and selling toys!

As you can see in the photo below of one of these rockets in its original packaging, this thing was also called an "#920 Unbreakable Atlas Air Force Intercontinental Ballistic Missile'  - whew! what a mouthful LOL

Photos courtesy of Charles Davenport

The #920 designation was also used for this version of the smaller rocket:

My 'Titan' version

Processed Plastic No. 9670 Space Shuttle Columbia - Red fuselage

Here's the last color variation of Processed Plastic's Space Shuttle Columbia that I'm aware of. My sample is missing the large fuel tank and booster rockets though so I don't know what colors they were. These red versions are often listed as 'rare' - don't believe it! There's far too many of these that come up for sale to be anywhere close to 'rare'! I'll give it 'Slightly Hard To Find' but that's it! That being said it's a nice addition to the PP fleet. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Processed Plastic No. 9670 Space Shuttle Transportation System with Shuttle 'Columbia' - White Fuselage

If the Processed Plastic Space Shuttle 'Enterprise' was the VW Beetle of shuttles, this version of the 'Columbia' is the Cadillac! The 'Enterprise' was a real nice scaled down toy consisting of only the shuttle itself. There have been a couple of different color variations of this toy, but this version has the main propellant tank in red and two separate booster rockets in silver/gray along with the shuttle primarily in white. Everything is designed to jettison and drop off leaving the shuttle to 'fly' off under kid-power! Beautifully executed it is a rather complicated toy for Processed Plastic standards with a whole lot going on. As you can tell by the instructions printed on appliques attached directly to the toy components, there are two steps to take to activate the features:

1) Pressing a button on top of the shuttle releases the two booster rockets which are connected the large red propellant tank

2) Pulling back on the lever atop the shuttle allows it to disconnect from the propellant tank.

...and then, just as with the 'Enterprise', the cargo bay opens up revealing a spacious interior in which one could add a satellite (I haven't tried that yet - gotta do it some day!

Overall the toy measures 16" (40.64cm) H. The propellant tank is 14" (35.56cm) H x 2 1/2" (6.35cm) diameter. The booster rockets are 13" (33.02cm) H x 1 1/2" (3.81cm) diameter at the flair. The shuttle is 9 1/4" (23.49cm) L x 7" (17.78cm) wingspan x 3 1/4" (8.25cm) H. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Here's my sequence of photos showing the Space Shuttle 'Columbia' landing upon completion of STS-4 on July 4th, 1982 at Edwards AFB, CA The shuttle was much further away than the photos make appear. It was a good thing I had my 400mm lens back then to at least get these shots!