Rough Shot

[Tinplate6]

I'll be honest with you, I'm not a gambling man...normally. I rarely will purchase anything sold in lots, that's where people usually put all their junk. I saw this lot sale on "the Bay", and I almost passed it up, but there were three guns in it I had wanted for some time. The problem was, the photos were just out of focus enough so you really couldn't see the true condition of the pieces. :blink: The seller said they had some "play wear"...hmmm. How bad could it be, right? Well, a bit worse than that, at least in my humble opinion.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to the condition of tinplate toys I'm a bit, oh, how should I say this?..."retentive" about the appearance. Litho is notoriously fragile and scratches if you breath on it :rolleyes: , so I was skeptical, but I knew I probably wouldn't see some of these guns again and I went for it. Ouch. Ok, they weren't that bad, but it was certainly more than play wear. Don't get me wrong, they were really a great deal, about $40 each, well worth the price of admission. The strange thing was, they were in great shape considering how scratched they were. :huh: I mean, usually, toys that saw a lot of play, have rust and such on the plated trim and triggers. However, these were in really clean condition. The way I see it, these were probably someone's pride and joy, well cared for, and through some unfortunate accident, perhaps moving them to the car for a show, the box was dropped and the owner saw his precious guns bounce and skitter across the pavement :unsure: . That alone would bring me to tears. :( Anyway, so I spent quite a lot of time cleaning and polishing the litho and managed to clean them up significantly, as well as removing about 40% of the scratches. So, here they are, the big prizes? The Super Triple-O-Gun, the Mars Gun and the Ray-W-Gun.

Although I see the Mars come up periodically, I have only seen the Triple-O-Gun once, as well as the Ray-W-Gun. These are both fairly uncommon. The last two pieces, the Atomic Space Gun and the tiny Space Atomic Gun, are pretty common, but they came with the deal, and I didn't have those either. The Mars gun has a serious dent in it (this was mentioned in the post), and surface scratches on the butt end. The Triple-O has most of the damage across the middle of both sides...road rash? The Ray-W was the best of the three, with minor paint wear on the high corners.

I am really curious, are all of you as particular as me? :unsure: I mean, do you have any banged up examples in your collections? I'd like to know how much surface damage is considered acceptable as far as tin litho goes. I'd like to see your damaged goods...

[Phil R]

My rule on buying rayguns. Don't buy any guns with rust unless it's a very good gun or a cheap one I don't have. I can restore it. Only buy damaged non metal ones that are either repairable or rare. Only buy a heavily damaged gun with box at a good price if I need the box.

[JimK]

I like them when they look like they have been played with. Those are very nice guns. You did well.

JimK