Knox is Back and How to Become a Secret Agent, Part 1…..Day 115 of Bond 365

Alexander Knox

Passed away this day in 1995

American President in You Only Live Twice

Alexander Knox is making a second appearance on Bond 365. He was featured back on January 16 to celebrate his birthday. Check out January 16 for an entry on Knox.

How to Become a Secret Agent, Part 1

Recently, I went into a Dollar Tree store where lots of discontinued weird and wacky items are collected and become the last chance to go home with a consumer before ending up in a dumpster and ultimately some landfill. Occasionally, some item will jump out as something worth picking up and then featuring it here - lucky you!

Grafix is a global toy company that apparently makes (or made) a line of Secret Spy Agent Kit. I picked up four different kits at the store and figured today was a good time to spotlight the “Invisible Pen Decoder Kit”.

The kit is bare bones, which is not a surprise since this is geared for young kids probably under the age of 10. There’s a dubious noir styled agent in the upper left hand corner of the box holding a secret folder. The message on the cover is typed and some aspects of the message are revealed. However since this kit comes with a pen, unless you can print like a typewriter, you’ll be handwriting your secret message.

The kit came with an instruction sheet, the dual invisible and decoder pen, and a spy pad. I did have to chuckle that the instruction sheet lists itself on the “kit includes” list. 

The three-step instruction oddly enough doesn’t tell you which end of the pen is the invisible ink and which end is the decoder. Perhaps it is meant to be inherent, so I’m sure the omission of that small detail would not stop a tot or a wannabe spy agent.

Writing out a famous Bond quote, I quickly witnessed that an agent is not going to want to write anything secret with this pen. I could see exactly what I wrote without issue.

I swiped the decoder pen tip over my visible message and the ink popped from off-white to a dark blue color so the words stood out from the page.

I think any youngster, young or old, will enjoy the novelty of the kit. And who knows, it might just inspire the next Bondian secret agent!

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