In 1950 The Eagle Comic was published and introduced one of the most enduring fictonal hero’s to emerge in post WW2 Britain, Dan Dare, set 45 years in the future; a future where space travel had happened. Our nearest planets were still a mystery. Dan Dare was conceived from the dashing fighter pilot aces idolised by young boys who had lived through the war, albeit now piloting rocket ships. This was the golden era of retro space comics, the USA had Buck Rogers and numerous other lesser known hero’s. We also had a few others but none as iconic as Dan Dare, Digby and their companions; male, female, young and old; truly diverse. They reached planets in our solar system and beyond that were as stunningly beautiful as they were naively ridiculous, peopled by aliens as memorable as their human counterparts.

In the mid 1950’s Crescent Toys decided that this comic strip was sufficiently popular to invest in what was possibly their best and most innovative range of hollowcast lead figures. Just five figures and a tiny rocket with a launcher scaled to hold this were produced. Dan Dare and his batman Digby wore a Green no 1 uniform, Miss Peabody; his beautiful scientist companion and their commander; Sir Hubert Guest wore space suites and were accompanied by Sondar, a Martian Treen alien and ally, painted originally in gol, later a silver version was added. This set was sold in a beautifully illustrated box. The original figures are shown above.

Crescent looked to maximise their investment. The uniforms had been based on RAF styles so they repainted the figures to enchance their RAF boxed sets, even Sir Hubert became an RAF fireman. Rank insignia was often added randomly by the painters. These are shown above, the lighter blue ones for the US market. This was an important market but Dan Dare was unknown outside the UK, so with the addition of other repainted figures from different ranges they appeared in carded and boxed sets as generic space figures. On the right are examples of the known paint variants of the original Dan Dare set, all factory painted, the lower image shows three variations on one theme; a blue faced alien.

Alongside the original Dan Dare set other figures were re-versioned to join them. I’ve managed to find examples of all the acknowledged ones (Two left images show them next to the original RAF versions), these could also be found in later, exported boxed or carded sets. The re-versioned diver was only found in carded sets like this, no other accessories were included.

The image below shows a couple of figures that I’ve seen no other examples of; but they are definitely factory painted. The green faced fellow is re-versioned from an US GI figure.

Finally, the rocket launcher and rocket. the tiny rocket is original. The launcher, because of casting problems is hardly ever found undamaged and is a mystery. This example came from a boxed RAF set and is painted a green colour that is common to other Crescent items. The issue is that the front laucher rail is back to front, but there is no sign that it’s been repainted or touched-up. Re-attaching these parts is very difficult and it’s not re-cast. However, it’s the best example I have of this scarce item, so here it is.

Click on any image to enlarge. The next post will return to Hinton Hunt; Marcus Hinton’s fabulous 54mm medieval figures.