Spaco ...the Game of Flying Saucers

Description

Made in 1955 in Poland, Oregon. It's got that midcentury pulp fiction sci-fi vibe. The game actually lets you lauch a tiny flying saucer across the board. It kind of feels like a mix of between Monopoly and Tossacrosss. It's like Flying Hats (1890) with nifty Space Age art and a different scoring system. The object to fly paper cones weighted at the tip into holes of different values in the box base. The game has three lithographed hands with a dowel on the middle underside, the cones are placed on the fingers and by hitting down on the other end are propelled through the air. The physical copy I have has five plastic, weighted tip cones in brown, black, red, yellow, and green. The launcher is spring metal in the shape of a rocket with the Spaceo name. The spring arm has a hole for a single cone to sit in. The launcher is then placed six inches from the outer field and the cone is launched toward it. There is a square grid of the same metal with 7 X 7 holes in it sitting in a cardboard frame holder, into which you hope to land your cone. The cardboard framework has the planets listed along two edges, with the space port numbers along the other two edges. You cross-reference the two to the card for the planet/space port hole you landed in. Small cards are also involved with how much the planets score, depending upon who has claim to them. Cards of mostly $50, and some $100, are at 7 space ports a piece on Neptune, Pluto, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Venus.

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