DIA Space Gun (Unknown / late 1950s? / Japan / 3 x 4 inches)

The very best tin lithographed space guns were the ones that used the toy's body as canvases for miniature works of science fiction art. I've always thought that this double-barreled holdout pistol was one of the coolest.



There's not a whole lot known about this little guy. It's a cap gun, and it was made by DIA an unknown company in Japan sometime around the late 1950s. The toy has embossed features, brightly colored and imaginative lithography, and, well, that's pretty much it.

But hey, how much more do you need?



The mechanism's fairly simple: The small latch on the left side of the toy releases the barrel, which flips forward. A roll of caps is inserted and the gun's ready to blast the enemy. It uses a standard roll of paper caps.



This is a pretty rare gun, especially in decent condition. And while mine has a few scratches and rough patches, I'm just happy to own one at all. There's no special story behind how I got it -- eBay provides, you know? I definitely felt good adding it to my shelf, though.

Strato Gun (Futuristic Products Co. / 1953 / U.S. / 4 x 8.5 inches)

I think what I love most about the Strato Gun is that it really looks like the prop from some great, old science fiction adventure flick. It's fancifully futuristic, but at the same time, it kind of looks like it means business. If your business is blasting BEMs from Betelgeuse.

The Strato Gun is made from chrome-plated, die-cast metal, and it has a pleasing, solid heft -- even in an adult's hand. The toy fires rolls of caps, a simple enough ammunition used by not only junior spacemen, but also junior cowboys, junior pirates, junior cops, and junior soldiers. If you were armed and underage in the Fifties and Sixties, you were probably packing a cap gun.

The body and barrel of the gun flip upwards, revealing the cap mechanism just above the handle.

The toy was originally available in both chrome and matte finishes. (There's also a plastic Dan Dare water pistol made in the U.K. that borrows heavily from the Strato Gun's design.) The chrome version comes up most often, which I think is pretty good since I like it more than its (literally) duller brother.

This ray gun and I go back quite a ways. See, when I first started collecting, Strato Guns appeared on eBay with some regularity -- maybe once every month or two -- and prices were fairly consistent. Consequently, I never bothered bidding on the gun, instead holding my money for whatever rare pieces might pop up. My attitude was, "I can get one whenever I want, so for now I'll go after all the tough stuff."

One day, I was visiting the collector and dealer Justin Pinchot in sunny California. He presented me with a table full of guns for sale, including a dead mint Strato Gun. After giving it some thought, I decided on two guns: the extremely rare and utterly beautiful Renwal Planet Jet (which remains one of my all-time favorites), and a fairly common -- though extremely cool looking -- Ideal 3-Color Futurama Gun. To be fair, I didn't know whether the Futurama gun was common or not; I was new to the game and hadn't yet gained any real perspective.

Regardless, I passed on the Strato Gun because, hey, I could get one any time I wanted. Unless, of course, the supply dried up. Which it did. And unless the price climbed to about six times what I could have bought it for. Which it did.

Fast forward about four or five years. I was down in Adamstown, PA, with my friend, Karl Tate, and my girlfriend, shooting a profile of the Toy Robot Museum and its curator, Joe Knedlhans. We had taken a break for the day and decided to hit Morphy's auction house -- they also have cases full of toys being sold on consignment and you never know what you're going to find.

I still didn't own a Strato Gun because I refused to pay more than I was originally prepared to spend all those years ago. Yep, I can be stubborn like that.

I was wandering around, checking out the toys, when from a few cases over my girlfriend lets out a little yell. I rush to see what she's found and discover, sitting on a shelf and gleaming in the overhead light, a shiny Strato Gun. My pulse raced a bit as I stooped down to check out the price tag; it went into overdrive when I saw that the gun cost pretty much what I remembered it costing a few years earlier. It wasn't quite as clean as the one Justin offered me, but it was close enough. About five minutes later, I walked out the door with my newly purchased prize.

There was definitely a feeling of closure when I finally stuck the toy on my shelf; I had my Strato Gun, and a hole in my collection had finally been filled. It also stands as a powerful reminder: Every time I get bummed out about missing an auction or letting a toy slip through my fingers, all I have to do it glance at the Strato Gun and I remember that everything comes up again, and nothing's more important to a collector than patience.

Sing it, Axl! "Just a little patience/Oooh yeah/Just a little patience..."

Dan Dare Space Pistol (Lone Star / 1950s / U.K. / 5.5 x 7.5 inches)

One of the most interesting looking guns to come out of the 1950s was the Dan Dare Space Pistol, which was a tie-in with the United Kingdom's leading science fiction hero.

The ray gun's design was, at the time, wholly original; its angular fins and concentric circles made it look almost like a space ship. It was one of the larger space guns, and its die-cast construction lent it a nice heft. I can only imagine how fun it must have been to play with it as a kid. (Though I can say with authority that playing with it as an adult is a helluva lot of fun.)

I've always liked this toy's paint scheme. The whole thing is done in red, and then silver is applied by an air brush to highlight the gun's contours. It's a nice effect, and one I've never seen on any other toy from that period. (It was also released in blue with silver accents.)

The Space Pistol fired rolls of paper caps, which were loaded underneath the top sight. Smoke exited the front of the barrel.

Lone Star would go on to reuse the gun's design a couple different times, and there's at least one plastic version that came out of Hong Kong in the late Sixties. 

888 Gun (Unknown / 1950s / Japan / 2.5 x 3 inches)

While America and various European countries were producing a rainbow of plastic ray guns, Japan's toy companies focused on creating their weapons out of tin. Because the stamping process doesn't allow for complex cuts, rings, or swirls, most of these toys were more simply designed than their Western counterparts. However, the Japanese had perfected the art of lithography, and they chose to use the ray guns as mini canvases, literally covering them in rockets, space men, galaxies, and anything else the designers could think of. Often these were combined with embossing techniques that resulted in toys that, like the 888 gun, were nothing short of beautiful.

The 888, a simple cap gun, remains a particularly uncommon toy. I consider myself lucky to own one, and in fact, it stands today as one of my best pick ups. I found it at an antique gallery down in Pennsylvania, and when I checked the price tag, I was astonished to find the seller wanted about an eighth of what it's typically worth. I put on my best poker face and carried the toy to the cashier, which is when I got my second surprise: Due to an ongoing sale, the toy was marked down another 10 percent! I didn't ask any questions, just forced my face into an even greater study in nonchalance, paid the nice woman behind the counter, and then beat the hell out of there before I lost control and started skipping around the store. 

That same day, I also managed to pick up another fantastic ray gun -- which I'll discuss later -- and a number of rare, vintage paperbacks. Yeah, those are the kind of antique crawls that you remember...