Quaker Space Flight to the Moon series 1-8

[tingmissartoq]

hank you Charles for restoring and making available these historical space items, absolutely fascinating.
In my youth in Australia (50+ years ago) we had
Spaceage
which were excellent models for nothing (or at least the price of the cereal packet)

[marinesniper]

good looking pic

[cdavenport]

Originally Posted by rbeach84

Charles, what is the history of these paper-constucts? Is it as I assumed, something once included with Quaker Oatmeal?

These little beauties were printed on the backs of Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice cereal boxes in the early 50's. Though I missed this series because I was just a baby and living in England, I was old enough to catch the tail end of the trend when I built other models that were printed on the backs of Cheerios cereal boxes.

[cdavenport]

Originally Posted by tingmissartoq

hank you Charles for restoring and making available these historical space items, absolutely fascinating.
In my youth in Australia (50+ years ago) we had
Spaceage
which were excellent models for nothing (or at least the price of the cereal packet)

Wow! I completely missed this series. I did not often go grocery shopping with my mother. In fact, I can clearly recall sitting in the car with my father waiting for her to finish. So, I never knew about those fantastic premiums. In retrospect, I'll bet that's why she had me wait in the car...so I wouldn't bug her about getting this or that box of cereal! The bitch!

[Hudsonduster]

Oh, a memory bubbles up!!

I'm about three, waking from a nap to find one of these boxes on the counter. Perversely gifted and precocious (before you snort, let me qualify by saying I have produced precisely NOTHING with all that early promise), I quickly divined the intent of the artwork and set to it with a paring knife.

I think I got in trouble not so much for wielding a sharp object without supervision as for inadequately providing for the box's contents before undertaking the project. Even at that tender age, I'd formed my lifelong attachment to Shredded Wheat, and found Puffed Wheat unbearably insipid: most of the collateral damage ended up on the floor.

'Duster

[Steve_A]

I've built two thus far with "Exploring the Moon" my absolute favorite. The colors are vivid and the choice of colors are perfect and all blends so well into the other. I used a "Chicken in a Biscuit" box for one of the models and found that to be a little too thick and too rigid. I had some sheets of "chip board" and found that it was a nice thickness and gave the whole model the right rigidity. I love these models and it has been a great nostalgic trip. They predate me by ten years, but thanks to Major Davenport I can have the opportunity to build them today.

[cdavenport]

Fellow Paperians, I am so gratified that you are enjoying these little gems from the past. It seems they strike a whimsical chord in quite a few of us!

[Uyraell]

As a child (between about age 7 and age 10) I strove hard to collect the plastic kits in Kellogg's cereal packets.
My absolute favourite set was that associated with the Apollo Moon landings.
Unfortunately, NZ (as far as I know) never actually received the complete set, missing out on the Saturn V B Rocket at about 1:600 scale, and the Apollo Capsule at about 1:200 scale.
So, what we got was the Command Module, Lunar Lander, Lunar Rover (very, very rare), and Astronaut.

Even so, those were the very height of Cereal-Kit sophistication, which was never again in NZ attained.

We did though, get the plastic "Crater Critters" set, the "Neptune Band" set, and the "Crazy Camel Train" set, in huge numbers, several times repeated. No interest was aroused by those: I saw no point nor use to those three sets above.
The "Four Fun Cars" set was of great interest and could (and by me, was; by virtue of collecting the same set four times and thus having each car of one complete colour) be made into four rather good looking cars of their respective eras. Naturally: those were the sets I lost.

However; imagine my vast surprise when, one day in the mid 1980's I discovered a Chinese-made box set (priced at about $9. NZ, then) containing most of those Kellogg's kits (on the original sprues, no-less!) that had been available when I was a child. The Moon Missions set, the Famous Ships set, the Four Fun Cars set, and even the World Aircraft Set.
I purchased two boxes with identical contents, and only allowed myself to build one each of the Command Module and the Lunar Lander.
The rest of the kits in that box remained unbuilt. As has the contents of the other box, still unopened.

I'd dearly like to one day re-create those or similar in paper, but it would be a long-term, very much "minimodel" project.

Having visited the links to cereal kits posted earlier in this thread, I thought I'd contribute by mentioning those kits I collected so long ago.

Kind and Respectful Regards my friends, Uyraell.

[Steve_A]

Originally Posted by Uyraell

Even so, those were the very height of Cereal-Kit sophistication, which was never again in NZ attained.

Nor, in the U.S. Those, or the prizes in Cracker Jacks!

[Vermin_King]

My favorites were the Cowboys and Indians available in Honeycomb cereal. Got enough of those eaten to be able to get two forts by mail-in. It was supposed to be a fort and an Indian encampment, but they were out of it, so substituted another fort ...