to a celebration and study of toy ray guns! Whimsical and zany, these fanciful objects conjure fond childhood memories of Buck Rogers and Captain Video, of backyard spaceships that blasted off for high adventure in the endless reaches of space. The stuff of fancy, toy ray guns are powered by pure imagination, by our almost unlimited capacity to wonder. Yet they represent other things as well. They are weapons intended to protect us from our deepest fears of the dark unknown, and they remind us of our vulnerability in the face of an endless and mysterious cosmos. Ray guns are testimony to the fact that we often conceive of even the majesty of space as a backdrop for our conflicts and struggles, and that we finally set foot on the moon only as the result of a deadly, war-like, competitive "race" between two superpower nations. From the exuberant Art Deco disintegrator pistols of the 1930s, to the streamlined and futuristic tin litho sparkers of the 50s and the darkly post-apocalyptic nitro blasters of today, toy ray guns express and represent our dreams, fears and fantasies, and it is to the study and celebration of these remarkable objects that this website is dedicated.