Our very good friends at Plastic Warrior have come up with another great issue. This issue number 159 has an very interesting article on Deluxe Reading. Deluxe Reading was the company that sold toys during the Christmas season through supermarkets. I remembered going with my mother to a local market that is now long gone and seeing the displays. I did not get any of their sets.
What I discovered in the latest issue of Plastic Warrior is Deluxe Reading was also sold in UK. The sets were the same as in the United States including the firemen for their Deluxe Fire Fighters Set. A complete set in the box was sold in UK for 40 pounds or equivalent of $61.20. I told Paul Morehead the editor of Pw it would have gone for twice or more in the states.
I remember Deluxe Reading, I wanted a Cape Caneveral, instead I got the Deluxe Reading version. I was initially disappointed, but the Deluxe Reading was a nice set. I especially liked the missile launchers on the main base, my friends were ducking missiles for weeks. One of the few times my parents substitutes for Marx worked in my favor.
I thought for years the Cape Canaveral Set my brother and I got for Christmas in 1962 was the Marx set. It wasn’t until years later I realized it was the Reading version. It didn’t make any difference to us, it was a great set. My only complaint was we could never fire the main rocket in the house because of the dent it put in the living room ceiling on our first “launch.”
Never saw the Deluxe Reading Cape Canaveral set, but I had the Marx set. Was my least favorite playset of all. Maybe you guys didn’t miss anything.
George
I got an Cape Canaveral set and It was one of my least favorite sets. I feel that my parents got me non violent playsets.
Paul, I always managed to militarize anything I received. My sister got ticked at me when I turned her doll house into a strongpoint. At least my guys didn’t have to knock out any windows to shoot.(heheheh…)
Wayne
The gas station end up as fort etc. because it was part of my toy room and took up space. I had to do a lot of thinking out side the box with it in the way.
I hear you there, Paul. A fella’s gotta do what a fella’s gotta do! 😉
I remember the Redding set from going to the supermarket with my mother when I was a child. My memory is not a clear as it was, but I belive that you could pay off the Redding sets a week at a time. Or that you got some sort of discount for buying groceries in that store. I’m sure that there was some sort of incentive to have parents shop at that particular grocery store. It’m may have been A&P, Bohacks or King Kullen. I wish i could recall the details.
I found a nice set that I sold to Robert Bruce about 30 years ago for $150 which was big money at that time.
I wonder if he is still around?
My recollections of the Deluxe Reading set, it had two base pieces, one with I think radar and multiple ,missile launchers, they were detachable and make for good missile fights with your friends. The other was a tall structure with a support you see in large rockets, I guess it guides the rocket upwards on launch, I don’t know. I remember there was an elevator that that was attached with string and a manual hand crank to bring something up to the top, the astronaut I guess that rode the rocket. Mine came in a dull red with black trim, there were also multiple figures included performing various tasks or guarding the rocket. Seems to me there was also some type of tractor or tram too. That’s what I remember, but it’s been many many years.
Oh yes, I militarized everything in my 54mm world, too. That poor farm house got in the middle of some terrible battles. At one point (after seeing ‘Shenandoah’) the farm family got burned out by the Yankees and the men folk joined up with the irregulars. My sister’s doll house got caught up in it, too. Even the ‘Haunted House’ and ‘Bats in the Belfry’ game center piece was in the maelstrom. I remember my MPC GI’s, trapped in the tin litho barn, catching Hell from a Lido German flamethrower section. Tough times, tough times.
Ed Yes, absolutely it was 2 big pieces. And the figures got locked in, I think, by the bases fitting into raised clips. The figures were very close to the Marx smaller sailors and air force.
Boy, that was a long time ago!
yep,we had done it I guess.
All my farm truck, painted in green and camo,the fence bed cover up. I had got some doll houses converted in everything but ruins, the nice speed recreation boat in to torpedo boats and many civilian figures in to casualties. I made a ZOO playset in to a jail/prisoner camp with wolf as dogs. The rest animal I give a live.
I don’t know if was imagination or obsession but more less lack of more army toys I should say, we want to be as historical as we thought and made real graphic battles. Thanks God my mother was very fun and like what I did, she never intervene in my battles conversion…
My buddy had a sister and we always commandeered her doll house for our battles. My buddy’s grandfather also worked at a sawmill in Michigan so he brought back wooden blocks that we used to make huge forts combined with every kind of building we had. Spent many a rainy or cold winter day having huge battles. Good times, good memories.
The more I think about the Deluxe Reading set the more I remember. The bases of the figures had indentations on the side of them that were designed to fit into clips on the structures. Also it seems to me there was a tram of some sort that actually had something like railroad tracks molded onto the taller structure. The only figure I remember is some type of military guy with an automatic type weapon being held across his chest. I’m pretty sure there was a guy with a fire extinguisher and some dude with a wrench, but I could be wrong .