Ajax 80mm Space Figures and Space Sets - Pt 8 Ajax #47988 Astronaut Rocket Set with Blue Second Stage

This is one of a couple of interesting sets utilizing Ajax figures as well as Royal Toy Atomic Cap Bomb and Processed Plastic rocket ships (or parts of them). These were shown in the book 'Blast Off - Rockets, Robots, Ray Guns, and Rarities from The Golden Age of Space Toys!' by S. Mark Young, Steve Duin, and Mike Richardson. The sets in the photo only show silver-gray spacemen and I believe these were not offered directly by Ajax, but rather a cake supply or decorating business who utilized the various components from different companies. In today's post, the lower portion, or first stage of the rocket, is the Royal cap bomb, while the upper parts are PP.

Ed

Culled from the Internet

One of mine (shown with a Thomas spaceman)

The upper stage components were culled from rockets like these (my collection)

Extract from the book 'Blast Off'

The three rockets I have in my collection. Note: all of my trigger release mechanism had gone brittle over the years and are broken! The release levers you see sticking out of the sides were just placed in position to make the rockets look complete, but they are in fact busted.

As the figures have already been covered during this past week or so, I'm only posting one photo of each here.

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