Space Water Pistol (Reliable / 1950s / CAN / 3.5 x 5.5 inches)

Another unnamed ray gun, this time a water pistol. Call it what you like, but with those deco swoops, spacey fins, and sweet curves, it's not a toy you're likely to forget.

Reliable, a Canadian company, pulled out all the stops, turning the basic water pistol into a work of art. I particularly like how the toy becomes a very Flash Gordon-esque rocket when looked at from above. Very clever!

The gun also features a compass, something I wish more toys included. You just can't go wrong with a compass. Not only does it look awesome, it provides some much needed functionality. After all, space men can't rescue alien princesses if they're lost in the woods!

Reliable's water pistol was available in the usual variety of colors. And take a look at the tip of the gun. Water pistols in the 1950s often featured brass tips. It's a nice touch, a mark of quality construction. Looks cool, too, right? Lots of vintage ray guns are missing this tip, so when shopping around for one, make sure it's complete.

Rocket Jet Space Gun (U.S. Plastics / 1953 / U.S. / 4.5 x 5.5 inches); Space Gun (Plast-Trix / 1950s / U.S. / 4 x 4.5 inches)

It's been a while since I've written about ray guns, so today I'm featuring two. Talk about... wait for it... bang for your buck! (That pun's for you, Andy!)

I really love these little guns. They're simple toys, and do what you expect a squirt gun to do: squirt water. Bu their looks -- now that's something special! The smooth, metallic finish looks nearly liquid in the right light, like the toy was made out of mercury or something. Pretty darn striking.

The Rocket Jet has a few variations. This one's all silver, but the toy's also often found with a bright, orange trigger. The tip, which is concave like the front of an old-school jet engine, is also sometimes orange. There's another version out there with a translucent red trigger. However, I've got to say, the pure silver version's my favorite.

The trigger guard is often missing on the Rocket Jet. It's usually a clean break, and you often can't tell anything was supposed to be there.

The other gun, which, as far as I know, has no special name, is a little less common than the Rocket Jet. Honestly, I don't know a whole lot about it. I'm going to assume there are variations out there, but I couldn't tell you what they look like.

Those swoopy looking marks on the gun -- under the back fin, under the front of the decorative side piece -- are actually part of the plastic. This "marbling" is common in metallic plastic, and many collectors (myself included) look for it specifically.

Regardless of my feelings about the all-silver Rocket Jet, I really love the red trigger and stopper on this gun. The colors pop like fireworks.

Like I said, these are your standard water pistols: fill 'em up and piss off the cat. It's hard to tell in the photos, but the tip of the un-named gun is a white, hexagonal piece of plastic. Many, many water pistols from the 1950s had these types of tips, and they're a surefire way to tell whether a gun is modern or not. In most cases, this tip will be brass colored (or, actually made from brass). Again, a great way to ID an older water pistol.

U.S. Plastics used an incredibly thin material when making the Rocket Jet. If you shine a light through it, you can see the water pistol mechanism.

U.S. Plastics, who mad the Rocket Jet, also produced a number of Space Patrol ray guns. I don't know much about Plas-Trix, but they've got a pretty funky name and the company was based out of Brooklyn, NY, so they've gotta be at least kind of cool, right? Right.

I was actually pretty dismissive of water pistols when I first began collecting. There are so many of the translucent, plastic ones floating around, and it seemed like most were produced in Hong Kong during the latter half of the Twentieth century. Heck, I grew up with the things. They're still produced today! Pshaw!

But then I started to give them a closer look, and I realized I was being a kind of dumb. Many of the greatest plastic ray guns from the 1950s and early Sixties happened to be water pistols, and by ignoring them I was denying myself some amazing additions to my collection. So I hired a thug to knock some sense into me. Too bad I didn't know that his cough syrup addiction made him meaner than your average roustabout, because that beating went on a little longer than I'd have liked. But it must have worked, because before I could say, "Hey, I've still got one tooth left!" I was logged into eBay and bidding on water pistols. I haven't looked back since. (Mostly because I can't really turn my head too far in either direction anymore.)

So let my pain be a lesson for you: Don't get all snooty about your collection, don't limit yourself, and don't hire a thug with a wicked addiction to cough syrup.

Planet Jet Water Pistol & Space Scout Helmet (Renwal / 1954 / U.S. / 4 x 6 inches)

I remember it well: My birthday. A sushi restaurant in the East Village. Two good friends, at the time dating but now married. A present, flat, rectangular, wrapped. A book, clearly. But what kind of book? My friends knew me well, but even so, it could have been a book about anything. I rushed to open it.

Ray Gun, by some guy named Eugene Metcalf. An old looking tin ray gun on the cover. I flipped through a few pages, noting the brightly colored plastic toys. I closed the book, gave my friends a smile, thanked them for such a cool present. We all went back to our sushi.

Only... I didn't. Not really. I was still wandering between the covers of the book, crawling over each ring, curve, fin, and embossed planet. Those photos, only briefly glanced at, had somehow imprinted themselves upon my brain. Clearly my friends really did know me well, better in fact than I knew myself. Up until that moment, I didn't realize that I was a ray gun collector. But oh was I!

Ray Gun has pages and pages of beautiful space guns, but most of them pale next to one of my all-time favorite toys: Renwal's Planet Jet.

Abstract like only a space gun can possibly be, it's a miniature work of art disguised as a toy. Or maybe it's a toy elevated to the level of art.

Nope, I've got it: It's rock-solid, incontrovertible proof that toys are art.

My favorite part of the Planet Jet is the rocket on its spine, which zips forward with every pull of the trigger. The gun fires water, which is stored in the bulbous barrel. It also makes a clicking noise, because clicking noises are cool. Don't ask me why, but they are.

So what's up with the helmet? C'mon, I hear you asking about it. It's a strange one, right? All those open spaces and ribs and that funky antenna. It's called the Space Scout helmet, and while it wasn't specifically packaged with the Planet Jet, the two share a color scheme that pretty much demands that they be displayed together. Renwal's designers, renowned for their skills, were clearly firing on all cylinders when they came up with these two toys.

Both the Space Scout helmet and the Planet Jet came in a few different color variations. The helmet's are pretty straight forward -- both versions feature a yellow body, but the "ear muff" and antenna colors are reversed. Neither is more common than the other; I owned both at one point, but sold one of them off to a good friend. I kept this one because it more closely matches the Planet Jet's color scheme.

The gun came in three different variations: The yellow is most common, followed by a blue one with a yellow tip and trigger, and a red rocket; and a red one with a blue tip and trigger, and a yellow rocket. I'm honestly not certain which is rarer, the blue or the red. I've seen both on eBay, I've seen a couple of each in people's collections. Suffice it to say, they're both extremely difficult to find.

The Planet Jet was the first high-end gun to enter my collection. I've actually owned two of them: The first was missing the little fins coming off the front part of the barrel. It's a common flaw in the toy, and doesn't really take away from its appearance. Considering how scarce a gun it is, many collectors -- myself included -- don't worry too much about it. Besides, that particular gun was featured in the fantastic book Ray Gun!, which is just the kind of provenance I like.

Until, of course, a mint one comes along. Which, in my case, is exactly what happened. The same ray-gun dealer (who happens to be a good friend of mine) snagged the one photographed for this blog and offered it to me. I jumped at the opportunity. To help pay for it, I sold my first one to yet another good friend (who has since turned into one hell of a ray-gun collector himself).

The Planet Jet also stars in one of the most frustrating experiences I've had as a collector. A blue one appeared on eBay with its very rare -- we're talking only two or three known to exist -- display card. The seller was the retail wing of a very prominent auction house, so even though the photos only showed one side of the gun, I wasn't too worried. The description was very forthright in mentioning two missing fins (see?) and some scrapes and scuffs, so I figured I knew exactly what I'd be getting if I won the toy. I placed a bid and ended up taking it for just under what the gun would be worth by itself. Talk about a major victory!

Then the gun arrived. Seems I should have asked for a couple extra photos; the other side of the Planet Jet looked like a nail had been driven through the plastic! This was no small scratch, and I was amazed that such a reputable auction house would neglect to mention it in the description. Still, I wasn't feeling too bad because I had that rare card, which was worth more than the gun. For the money, I was still way ahead of the game.

Except, of course, the card was a reproduction. A bad one. I won't go into the hows and whys of identifying reproduction packaging, but trust me, a blind man could have picked this out.

Needless to say, I was livid. I called up the auction house, explained the situation to them, and was relieved when they immediately offered a full refund. But to this day, I'm staggered that they made such a mistake in the first place. (It's interesting to note that, a week or two after I returned the toy, it popped up on eBay again. This time, both sides were photographed. The description of the card, however, only included a small amendment: "It's possible that the card is a reproduction." Possible?)

Anyway, ain't none of us immune to making mistakes in this hobby. Mine was not asking for more photos. Live, learn, move on to the next toy. But at the same time, don't forget to enjoy the ones you've already got!

Atom-Matic Water Rocket Gun (Playcraft / 1940s / U.S. / 4.5 x 7 inches)

The Atom-Matic is one of my all-time favorite toys. With it's trim and slim, weirdly minimalist aesthetics, its designers reduced the ray gun down to its most fundamental parts: a handle, a trigger, a barrel, and three genre-defining concentric rings. What we're left with is the very essence of a space toy; all killer, no filler.

Except by "killer" we mean "something that might get you mildly damp"; the only atoms fired by the Atom-Matic are hydrogen and oxygen, in a special 1:2 ratio. Yep, it's a water pistol. The Atom-Matic is also surprisingly hefty, on account of its metal handle, brass firing assembly, and brass tip, so in a pinch, you might be able to club your enemy into unconsciousness. 

This is one of the rarer space guns, which makes sense; it'd be hard to imagine the abstract design proving popular with kids, especially in the 1940s when the toy market had yet to completely shift over to science-fiction based products (despite the popularity of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon). That this gun even made it off the drawing board is sort of a miracle, and is testimony to the old-school toy manufacturer's willingness to recognize quality and creativity.