Space Patrol Sweet Cigarettes

The Space Patrol sweet cigarettes were issued by Primrose Confectionery of Slough, who were a relatively major player in sweets at the time, releasing card sets for Joe 90 and the film version of Dad's Army.

While the pack art, and the illustrations on the box the packs came in, is superb and relate directly to the series, regrettably the cards themselves are factual and relate to the space race and rockets of the day. Similar promotions with other children's television series were not unknown in the 1960s and 1970s, and Fireball XL5 was used to promote a similar factual series of space cards for Zoom ice lollies at about the same time.

The set of cards still commonly available from dealers is definitely early 1960s in origination, even though most books date them as 1970. Card 33 states the Gemini 'will be launched in 1963', which means it came from earlier.

The Pack
The front illustration shows an excellent depiction of Captain Larry Dart, although both he and the blue hued Slim carry weapons - a rarity in the series. The picture of the Galasphere is the back of the pack is also exceptional (see above). The copyright on the these packs, which are still quite easy to come by, is 1965.

The Cards
There are fifty cards in the series, each measuring 34mm x 64mm.

01	Air Force Boeing IM-99 Bomare Interceptor Missile	26	Nord 5103 (AA-20)
02	Solid-Fuel Scout Rocket	27	Transit 111-B
03	Bullpup	28	SS-II
04	Titan	29	Exporer VII
05	Gar-11 Nuclear Falcon	30	Oscar Package
06	Talos	31	Pioneer III
07	Q-5 Target Missile	32	Tiros III
08	V2/WAC Corporal	33	Gemini
09	Falcon	34	Test Satellites
10	The Cobra	35	Explorer VI
11	Perishng Missile	36	Pioneer V
12	The Hawk	37	Laika
13	Little John	38	Talos Missile
14	Mace	39	Three Satellites In One
15	Redstone Rocket	40	Corporal
16	Thor-Able Nose Cone	41	R.051
17	Saturn on Launch Pad	42	Relay Satellite
18	Saturn’s First Flight	43	Alouette
19	Rascal	44	Regulus II Missile
20	Sergeant	45	Echo II
21	25-27 HTV Missile	46	Ranger I Spacecraft
22	Regulus 1	47	Rogallo
23	Jupiter	48	Explorer VIII
24	The Nike	49	Orbit Couch
25	Mercury-Atlas Combination	50	Satellite Mating

The backs of the cards promise a picture album to keep the cards in for the price of 1/- (One old shilling) and five box tops. The offer applies to the UK only. The cards are printed in England.

Below are the fifty cards, with numbers 1-10 across the top and continuing 11-20, 21-30 and so on.




The Box
The box the sweet cigarette packs came in was an especially fine affair, measuring 160mm wide, by 98mm high, by 212mm deep. The art on the top was similar to the packs, although here Larry Dart and Slim appear more in proportion to the puppets. Curiously, while Slim is blue on the packs, here he is flesh colored with a green and red uniform. Dart is holding a strange device which projects rays at the price label, showing the sweet cigarette packs to be 2d (two old pence) each. The Galasphere is depicted as a spinning top/flying saucer affair, landed on three legs with a ladder reaching down through the mist to the planet surface (below left).



Professor Haggarty and Colonel Raeburn adorn the left side of the box, in a television screen shaped vignette with futuristic buildings behind them (above right, top). The same design on the right side depicts the 'Humming Dogs' (shown as green with yellow eyes) from The Glowing Eggs Of Titan, facing a Space Patrol man who is presumably Husky, amidst a strange landscape of red plants, yellow mountains and a pink sky (above right, bottom). Both sides feature the 'spinning top' Galasphere along with the packs 'Space Patrol' logo. The portraits of Haggarty and Raeburn are especially fine. Regreitably, none of the illustrations are signed or credited, and make one wish a set of cards with the sweet cigarettes had been devoted to the series.

The front end of the box shows the 'Galasphere' flying over a the craggy landscape of a planet (see left) while the back (not normally on view to the buyer) tells the retailer the carton holds 72 packets. This would have been four packets across by three packets deep, in six layers.

The top of the box is die cut around the planet and scored so it can be folded back, allowing the main part of the top to stand vertically as a display at the back of the box (right).

It would seem the packets were still available, or being reissued, until the end of the 1960s, around the time the last Space Patrol episodes were being broadcast. It is possible alternative sets of cards, featuring strange creatures from outer space, were included in these. A set called Krazy Kreatures (from Outer Space) were available as a bubble gum size issue, with identical artwork featuring on a sweet cigarette size set too.

We would like to know more about the history of the range but Primrose regrettably appeared to go out of business in the 1980s. If anyone is able to give details, such as the identity of the artists (we believe different artists drew the cigarette packs and the box) or any other information, please contact us.


(With thanks to Jim Stevenson and Frank Munford)