REMCO...The Last Word

[MrRayGun]

Hi Gang!

 

 

I'm finally cataloging a multitude of REMCO guns but don't have definitive release dates for some of the most basic and ubiquitous models.

 

We know the ELECTRONIC SPACE GUN is dated to 1953...

 

But i can't find any release specifics for the ELECTRONIC SIGNAL RAY GUN or the JUPITER 4 COLOR SIGNAL GUN.

 

Thought these would be easy to pin point. Even wikipedia  mentions seemingly every toy REMCO ever did EXCEPT any ray guns!

 

Also, is anyone aware of REMCO TOY museum or resource?

 

Cheers!

 

MRG

[Brian..]

The Electronic Signal Ray Gun was first advertised in September 1956 and the  Jupiter Signal Gun was advertised in September 1958. 

[MrRayGun]

Great! Thanks!

 

How do we know this?

 

MRG

[Brian..]

It's all archived in the US papers. If I had a subscription I could reprint the ads, but being a tightwad I rely on the index. 

[MrRayGun]

Excuse my ignorance but that is all a bit cryptic to me.

 

What is/are THE US PAPERS? Could you point me to the SUBSCRIPTION opportunity you mention? Ray gun ads? Ray gun index? For REMCO products or some kind of massive toy list/repository?

I'm very intrigued.  Have many more items in the collection we're having trouble cataloging/researching, especially date-wise.

 

Look forward to this potential revelation.

 

Cheers!

 

MRG

 

 

 

[Brian..]

Visit https://www.newspapers.com/

 

You need to join but you don't need to subscribe.  It's free to view the index but a subscription allows you to see more. 

 

Enter some search titles in the search box, for example -  "Jupiter Signal Gun". The quotes are helpful because they restrict the results to the exact expression. You can search without them if you get no results. 

 

You can specify a date range to simplify the search. For example 1950-1970 

 

This is the search result. Notice that I have arranged the result by Paper Date Oldest. The top result is currently the earliest proof of the existence of the Remco Jupiter Gun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you sort the results Paper Date Newest then you'll see that the last time the gun was on sale was August 1963.  (The later references are the second hand market). 

 

 

 

 

 

[MrRayGun]

Wow!

Thanks Brian. This is a great resource.

 

Just subscribed. Don't mind paying for that at all.

I'm sure it's not the silver bullet for answering every question (Japanese, Chinese lithos, foreign guns, weird one offs, few russian guns i can't make head or tails of) but still very cool.

And we certainly have a selection of the aforementioned issues. Couple of dozen curios i'd likke to a least try to date if nothing else.

 

Are there any other reference sites you turn to regularly like the US PAPERS site?

 

 

Big thanks again!

 

MRG

 

 

 

 

[Brian..]

There's are British and Australian equivalents. The Australian site is completely free - look for Australia Newspaper Archive. The British site is subscription based but the OCR algorithm to turn the newsprint into searchable text is disgracefully bad. It has limited appeal but is great for looking up my ancestors. 

 

The American site is by far the best.

 

Why not search for your old relatives? If they have distinctive names you may discover all sorts of information about them. I found a cousin who lives in Philadelphia had been involved in a car accident back in the 1960s. It's a goldmine for family research. 

 

You MUST learn how to use the advanced search facilities to cut down on irrelevant results or you will soon lose patience.