Buck Rogers Raygun
April - May, 2007
The artifact featured this month is a Buck Rogers Rocket Pistol. This toy is a replica of the XZ-31 Rocket Pistol used by Buck Rogers in the first science-fiction comic strip introduced in 1929. His companion, Wilma Deering, used a XZ-35, a smaller version of Buck’s ray gun, which was also called the “Wilma Gun.” Buck Rogers also appeared in movies. The pistol was manufactured by the Daisy Manufacturing Company of Plymouth, Michigan and was the first metal ray gun. The XZ-31 Rocket Pistol cost fifty cents when it was introduced in 1934.
Artifact of the Month information was obtained from an object research paper by Patrick Brandon, Introduction to Museology, Fall 1996.