Into The Ether - B&W

 After comparing yesterday's bit of space art to today's, I think I like this one better. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Into The Ether!

Restoration Hardware's Space Master X-7 was the closest match to the AMSCO spaceships shown on the game board so I used it for this rendition. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Modifying an AMSCO Rockets Away Gameboard (1953) For Use As A Backdrop

Four years ago I posted the game board to AMSCO's "Rockets Away" game. That was the only part of the game I had and it was actually a dartboard. Made of a fibrous material, the object was to take the dart-like rocket shaped game pieces and drop them on the board scoring points based on where they landed. That meant the board was full of tiny holes. After posting the board I left it alone until a few weeks ago when I got a bug up my keester to do something about it. After hours of Photoshopping this is what I came up with. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Too big to scan, I had to rely on photographs

Edited to brighten it up and bring out the colors. It is chock full of holes!

After a couple of hours in Photoshop, the holes are gone but the edges are rough

The edges have been extended out along with the artwork. I cleaned it up as much as my meager Photoshopping abilities would allow. This is okay, but by my way of thinking, it's far too 'busy' - too many unnecessary nitnoy details to make a really good backdrop

I prefer this.

The 'sun' was far too close and looked menacing and all those funny balloons (asteroids?) floating around in the ether were annoying as well. It was meant to be a gameboard and those elements were there for a purpose, but as a usable backdrop for the kind of stuff I like to do, they were a distraction.

What do you think folks? This has potential now.

AMSCO Rockets Away Gameboard

Hmmmm, what to post? What to post? Let's see, any new airplanes? - yes but I didn't take pics. Umm, Medieval toys (Knights and castles and such)? yup, but I haven't finished photographing the whole series. MPC? Yeah, but not ready yet for more MPC. Little Green Army Men? yeah, but again I'm kinda burnt out with those for now. Let's stick to spacey stuff.

I got this AMSCO Rockets Away 15" (38.1cm) square x 1/2" (1.27cm)  thick game board some years back but was never able to get the complete game. It's made of a fiber material with a printed paper overlay. There was a periscope included in the game and the game pieces were little darts in the shape of spaceships. The players had to look through the periscope and drop the darts onto the board. That being said, there's no numbers on the board so I don't know what the primary targets were supposed to be. I bought this board because of the wonderful '50s era graphics but then the issue remained of all those darn holes in the board caused by the darts. At first I thought of Photoshopping out the little holes but what the heck, I don't have THAT much time. Still and all it was a terrific display piece for a while (I sold it earlier this year). Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

The back is plain, no printing, no makers marks, nothing!