"Thunderbird" Rockets Marked "Empire Made" A.P. Films 1966

[space.trucks]

Nothing to wake the kids for, hoping for help determining a maker. "Lunar Probe 1" is Thunderbird 3 missing its upper pylons. Each stands about four inches and only one is marked. Am not sure if they were toys or model kits due to the sloppiness in construction, and suspect that the "Thunderbird 1" is a nosecone for a larger piece (?). They came with four bootlegged MPC spacemen with no marks and again do not know if they were issued together or just part of a junk drawer grouping.

 

 

 

"K.T." ?

 

 

With the figures. Note the base on the blue figure meant to be space walking. Not MPC product.

[Golddalek]

Thunderbird 1 seems to be missing it's unique tail fins.

 

'Lunar Probe' I give the company credit for trying to get further return on their initial  die production start-up costs.

 

 

Kind of similar to 'Sunprobe' the name of the episode Thunderbird 3 was used to rescue the astronauts on the doomed space craft.

[space.trucks]

5 hours ago, Golddalek said:

Thunderbird 1 seems to be missing it's unique tail fins.

Hey good eye! Had a feeling something wasn't there, or it wasn't complete. Need to watch my Thunderbirds again. That Sun Probe episode is the best, like a 50 minute long space toy commercial with a plot.

 

I like how they are all #1. They are also so irregularly formed with excess glue drooling out I've been wondering what the story is. You have to angle the camera to make it look like they are all standing up properly. Assembled by an 8 year old was as far as I got, which is what made me think model kit remnants. Would "Empire Made" perhaps imply they were made in the UK? A.P. Films is Century 21 so they are licensed Gerry Anderson product. Gotta be an owner-assembled somethingorother. Maybe they named it Lunar Probe to shaft Derek Meddings out of some royalty payments & bilked Multiple Toymakers by cloning figures. This is getting fun!

[Golddalek]

I couldn't find Empire Made on a list of vintage toy companies.

but somebody named PeterW off a camera collector website wrote this, ( since I'm Texan, I'll have to take his word.)

 

Empire Made = made in the British Empire, of which Hong Kong was the last surviving territory.

It's a hangover from the days when Britain had an Empire, and goods made in the British Empire enjoyed a lower rate of import duty into the UK than goods made in other countries. It was called the 'Empire Duty Preference Scheme', and was usually part of a reciprocal trade agreement to help our exports. Goods from non-Empire countries had to have either the country of origin or 'foreign' marked on them.

I think the scheme applied also to Commonwealth countries, and may be the reason why you tend to find more old Kodak folders in the UK from Kodak's Canadian factory than from the Rochester US factory.

It was very common to see Empire Made on goods in the 1930s, but I think Haking's cameras were one of the last, if not the last, to use it.

Another little dodge was to ship them individually via Hong Kong and label the customs slip 'Camera from Hong Kong', again with a false value, to get Empire preference lower import duty till the Customs and VAT people got wise to that one as well.