Sunday, July 12, 2009

Vintage Wooden Space Helmet

One of the items currently available from the Blackman Cruz collection is this amazing Italian wooden space helmet prop from the 1930's .


Presumably they've had it authenticated, but I'm having a hard time imagining the circumstances of it's creation. Was it a background prop? A design study? The best theory I can come up with is that it was a master for a mold of some kind, hence the split down the middle. If it is authentic it bears an amazing resemblance to some of the pre-production designs Ralph McQuarrie did for "Star Wars".

Whatever it's origin I'd love to have it for my own, though I suspect the price is a bit out of my reach.

4 comments:

Doc Atomic said...

I'd want to see how they've authenticated the date on this; it just doesn't look at all like something designed that long ago. I'd have guessed 1970s -- as you say, the Star Wars similarities are pretty glaring.

Propnomicon said...

It's the similarities that make me question the date. Italy cranked out dozens of low-budget sci-fi flicks in the 70's and 80's. The 30's? Not so much.

Lance Uppercut said...

Judging by the general execution of this sculpt, the two distinct halves of this item were probably used as "bucks" for vacuforming multiple plastic copies.

TK826 said...

I came across this page while searching for the identity of the helmets in the below image:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y41/TK826/Misc/Helmets01.jpg

This image if from the 1980 film "The Blues Brothers". It is in the scene just as the police cars are crashing into the shopping mall.

I could be mistaken but they seem to have too many similarities to be just a random coincidence.

- TK826