30 Jun 2022 In the world of space toys, Leslie Singer is a Shooting Star

By Tammy Keith

Leslie Singer’s childhood obsession with space launched a vintage toy collection that’s out of this world.

The 78-year-old Little Rock man, a retired creative director and copywriter, grew up in Long Island, N.Y., in the height of science fiction television shows such as “Tom Corbett Space Cadet,” and “Space Patrol.” “As a kid, my friends and I played space cadet more than we played cowboys and Indians,” he said. “And one of the cool things about playing space was you had a ray gun.”

Singer knows the exact moment that sparked his desire to collect vintage ray guns. It was right after he moved to Arkansas in the 1970s, and he found an old ray gun in an antique store. “I bought it, and I said, ‘I’m going to start collecting ray guns.’ In addition to the guns, there were little space men, rocket ships. They just lit me up,” he said. “I had a very happy childhood. Half was the nostalgia of them, and half of it was the futuristic, optimistic design of the ray guns, for sure. They were Art Deco; they had fins and lightning bolts. The designs themselves were very intriguing to me.”

He traveled to antique toy shows all over the country as part of his pre-internet odyssey searching for space toys made from the 1930s to the 1960s. He gravitated toward ray guns like he had as a child, such as the “Space Patrol” smoke gun. “It was a prop on the television show. You filled it with talcum powder; a puff of smoke came out and that put you to sleep.” He still has the small red gun.

Singer’s ray gun collection, later fueled by online auctions, grew so large that it could fill a book, so he wrote one: “Zap! Ray Gun Classics” was published in 1991. He said it sold well and spurred a movement. “That book was the book on ray guns, and it started a national ray gun collection fad. Up until then, it was mostly robots,” he said.

Artist Peter Max of New York City found out through a mutual friend about Singer’s book and asked him if he’d trade some of his collection for a painting. Singer, who is a fan of Max’s work, sent him 50 “really good” ray guns and asked him to re-create the cover of the book.

“The painting is precious to me because he reproduced the cover of my first book in exchange for part of my collection,” Singer said.

He published a second book in 2018: “Do you Read Me? Vintage Communication Toys.” 

“They’re all walkie-talkies that didn’t really work, just pieces of wood that had an antenna sticking out, or some of them worked through a wire, very poorly. None of them would broadcast over the air. My whole thing is about the imagination,” Singer explained.

Unlike some collectors, the collector never wanted mint-in-package toys; he preferred ones that had been played with. He has a rusty, 1936 Buck Rogers Atomic Disintegrator given to him by a friend who found it buried in his yard. “It looks like some post-Atomic artifact,” Singer said. 

His three grown children don’t share his interest in space, he said, so he has streamlined his collection. Although he once had hundreds of toys, he sold all except 50 of his favorites that include a handful of ray guns. 

The world isn’t exactly as Singer imagined it as a child when he was pouring over science fiction comic books and running around zapping galactic villains. “As a kid, I was always fascinated with what I thought the future would be. A lot of it has come true: a phone where you can see who you’re talking to, space travel, just new technology,” he said.

Singer never let go of his childhood dream to go into space. “Back in the ‘50s, I signed up to take a rocket to Saturn. I remember sending away 50 cents to make sure I had a ticket for that. I’m still waiting on it,” he said, laughing.

If it comes, he’ll be ready. Have ray guns; will travel.