[ANZinSpace]

I found this photo on the WA State Library website which is dated 1955 and is from a local store display. I was going to ask people if they'd seen it before as it looked familiar to me but my initial search seemed to show that the body and grip was from the Dan Dare Cosmic Ray Gun and the darts were from the Space Patrol Rocket gun or possibly the Dan Dare version. Since there was a Dan Dare connection I searched on this site for Dan Dare guns (using Dan_* +Dare to fool the search engine (its a bit hit and miss)) and low and behold I found it - an Italian gun ==> Italian British Gun.

I know from an article (dated 1957) that very little in the way of toys was imported from Italy to Australia in 1955 so the question is was this made anywhere else?

[dratomic]

One of these was sold on eBay a while back. I noted it on my blog, can't remember exactly when.

[ANZinSpace]

According to TP6's thread he bought it sometime before August 9 2009.

My suspicion is that Palitoy was producing another Dan Dare gun but the market/interest for it dried up so they on sold or leased the molds to an Italian Company and an Australian company. I have an article from 1953 which comments on the fact that Pierwood Plastics had set up an international die exchange and was swapping and leasing dies to save costs (apparently a die for a radio cabinet could cost 2500 pounds to make, a high cost with such a small population).

It would also explain the "Made in England" on the gun TP6 has. They basically used the mold as was possibly there was a caveat on leasing the mold that they couldn't modify it. A similar situation occurred here when R&L moved all it's plastic cereal toy manufacturing to Mexico, for a time they just reused the molds with the Made in Australia still on them (so collector's have to know the colours of the plastic used here and those used in Mexico to determine which ones they have).

The more I get into this hobby the more interesting and intriguing it becomes.

This post has been edited by ANZinSpace: 15 July 2010 - 12:30 AM

[dratomic]

On the other hand, a dumbed down version of the mold -- no knobs, etc. -- was used for an Italian gun called the Orbiter-X. Again with a different front. That gun was from the early to mid Sixties, if I'm not mistaken.

Just tossing it out there.

And yes, this hobby constantly finds new ways to confound us!

[Tinplate6]

Gentlemen, the molds got used even more than that, here is the exact same cast as the Orbiter-X, plated and fitted for darts used in a gun set from Gherzi Italy called the Atomic Orbiter Shooting Game, the set came with a big cardboard target that fired a red rocket when you hit the bull's eye!

This post has been edited by Tinplate6: 15 July 2010 - 04:31 AM

[dratomic]

Good call, T6. I forgot about those puppies.

[Fineas J. Whoopie]

While we're mentioning it, there's also a 70's dart gun that was based on these guns. Not the same molds at all but a reference to them.

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[dratomic]

I remember when you snagged that one, Fin. Definitely based on the original Dan Dare gun.