Mystery Monday: Spiff ship revisited!

 

In the course of my manic movie reviews (see Space 1979 and Revenant Review "finales"), I was debating whether to do an installment of Mystery Monday, particularly since I didn't have anything in particular lined up. I decided it was time to do a revisit of the mystery that helped start this blog, the long-lost and untraceable "Spaceman Spiff" ship. For the followup post, I'll be going further afield with some pics from off-site. To start with, here's a pic from Moonbase Central, the site that got me on the trail.

Per the dedicated author behind the site, this vehicle was obtained from continental Europe. It's further reported that it has no manufacturer markings and a visibly different friction motor, though there's no pics to show this. What's of most interest is that the plastic is a clearly different shade than more representative ships. It seems to fit what I remember of my little ship than those I have seen or bought, and that might further indicate a later date. Still, I've second-guessed my memory too many times already to invest much further energy in this. Next up, a pic from an online listing that I think has been going on and off for a year or more.

The interesting tidbit here is that the seller mentions an alternate company name Wenco, a company based in Germany that still has an active site. Whatever the company's relationship, the photos in the listing show the Blue Box name, with a somewhat different presentation than other toys. Here's a closeup of mine for reference.

And while I'm at it, here's a pic I found of another Blue Box product. It looks like a Fisher Price Little People knockoff, and the odds are it is, though if the 1960s date mentioned is accurate, it may be from the same time or slightly ahead of the Little People's most familiar variations.

And here's a pic from another online listing, offered for under $15. Including shipping. I suppose I might get it. Fungghh.

And for the centerpiece, here's a couple more pics of my opened ship with an old playmate, whom I have long considered for his own installment. I got this guy at a sort of flea market around the time I got my original spaceship, and put them through many epic battles. It was also the toy that introduced me to the flint sparker, which I evidently forgot was in the Spiff ship. I thought of him as a Go-Bot knockoff because Ii recognized a vague resemblance to the bot I now know was called Zod. (Seriously...?)  I remember two colors, black and silver. I further recall at least one box of these with a priceless placard that showed squadrons of them swarming down from space. The one further clue to provenance is that it bears the optimistic manufacturer's mark SUPREME, half-hidden behind a wheel. Based on this, I have found at least one listed online, but as with many things, I preferred not to buy it.

Now for the part that really brought me back. When I first posted about this ship, I learned that this and several similarly cheap and cheesy ships from Blue Box were sold as tie-ins for the Blake's Seven TV series (covered at Moonbase Central in 2013 and earlier in 2009). After completing my post, I went back for a closer look. I particularly examined the following pic, cropped from a regularly reposted page from a catalog. What this jogged in my mind was that my original ship had a circular sticker that hadn't matched any other ship I had seen, of course remove almost as soon as I took the ship home. What put the train of thought in gear was that there had been a number on it. My best reconstruction had been that it was "76", which for reasons I still don't know offhand is sometimes displayed at gas stations. I never questioned that, especially considering the sketchy style of the toy, and sometimes incorporated it into my futile web searches. But now I wonder if that was a Blake's 7 sticker. From the collectors' accounts, this version of the toy is so rare even pictures are extremely rare. Furthermore, the simple fact is that the last Blake's 7 episode aired in 1981, and I certainly didn't get the ship earlier than 1987, I think more likely the following year. Yet, now that I have this in mind, I can't discount it. If somehow a few were still free-floating, long removed from their original context, a school prize bin is exactly where it just might turn up.

That got me thinking a little further, and I found that Moonbase Central actually got a few pics of these damn things on card (independently attested by Plaid Stallions). It's clear from these images that at least some of the silver saucers were originally Blake's 7 tie-ins. Admittedly, this casts some doubt whether my ship was part of this line. On the other hand, it's of interest that they were already using packaging that displayed the show's logo less prominently than the generic name, just what would be expected if they were trying to unload thousands of toys slapped with branding nobody cared about. Here's a pic of one of the other Blue Box ships on card.

And to wind things down, here's the ships in their places of honor in my workspace, complete with the Truckstop Queen, the Duchess (aka Connie) and Cassie, and the Galaxy Laser Team commander.  I've been intrigued that the GLT astronaut is about the right size for the ship. It's the kind of pairing I might have tried as a kid, except I don't remember rediscovering him until I had already lost the saucer. 

And here's a few more pics I've accumulated (including a few with the Trailer Park Princess).

Ah, for the days when there was room on my desk....

With that, I'm wrapping this up. It's been worth coming back to this, and I will probably do so again sooner or later, For now, I've had enough, and another year seems like about the right time for a new visit. That's all for now, more to come!