Raygun Gothic.

During the high point of the Downes Age, they put Ming the Merciless in charge of designing California gas stations. Favoring the architecture of his native Mongo, he cruised up and down the coast erecting raygun emplacements in white stucco. Lots of them featured superfluous central towers ringed with those strange radiator flanges that were a signature motif of the style and which made them look as though they might generate potent bursts of raw technological enthusiasm if you could only find the switch that turned them on.

William Gibson, The Gernsback Continuum

I lost it recently - which is probably just as well, under the circumstances.  No, it wasn't my cool, or my peace of mind, or my faith in humanity (sad to say, long gone) but rather an eBay™ auction for a Buck Rogers Disintegrator Pistol, model number XZ-38 to be specific. 

I've made cautious forays into genre collecting with my Major Matt Mason purchases, but somehow the idea of owning an 78-year-old ray gun takes it to a different level in my mind.  To be truthful, the idea of spending over $150 on a rusted child's toy also indicates a different level to me, which is probably why I stopped there and let the next bidder take it for only eight dollars (and fifty cents) more.

The XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol, produced by Daisy Manufacturing in 1935, was the follow-up to the astonishingly popular XZ-31 Rocket Gun* of the previous year, which had resulted in lineups of over 2,000 eager buyers at Macy's in New York when it was released.

The arsenal of Buck Rogers weaponry - there was also an X-35 "Wilma Deering" pistol and the XZ-44 Liquid Helium Water Pistol - is the first big science fiction spinoff merchandising success, reflecting the popularity of the Buck Rogers comic strip which was introduced in January of 1929.  The daily strip was based on Armageddon 2419 A.D., a short story by Philip Francis Nowlan which was published in the August 1928 edition of Amazing Stories, the classic Hugo Gernsback "scientifiction" magazine.

The eBay™ seller aptly described the XZ-38 as "Machine Age Toy Art", which is an accurate description of the Art Deco inspired design aesthetic introduced to the world by Buck Rogers and his spiritual partner (and competitor) Flash Gordon in their comic strip and movie appearances during the 1930s and 40s.

(I've always felt that the great failing of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century television series with Gil Gerard was that its art direction was based more in the 1980s than the 1930s or the 2400s, whereas the ongoing cult popularity of the 1980 Flash Gordon film adaptation owes a strong debt to the faithfulness with which it reproduced comic artist Alex Raymond's distinctive illustrations.)

So this time I regretfully decided to pass on the opportunity to own a genuine piece of geek history - but, who knows?  Maybe next time I'll be up against someone whose mental rusted-toy-purchase governor is set twenty dollars lower than mine.

- Sid

* My apologies to everyone who thought that it would be the follow-up to the XZ-37.