Hi - my name is Glen Huff from Seattle, Washington, and I've been avidly playing darts for 25+ years, and avidly collecting darts for over 23 years. I wanted to share with readers my excitement about a few sets that I recently acquired, which I'm really happy about finding, as I'd been looking for the first of the 2 sets for over 20 years.
1) "John Wisden Silver Comets" 1939
I won the bid for these about a month ago on EBay. I'm very excited to have found such a set of "John Wisden Silver Comet's" as these were among the first type of darts which Unicorn founder Frank Lowy founded Unicorn Products Ltd.
Thanks to inspiration and information very kindly provided to me over
the years by Unicorn Chairman Mr. Stanley Lowy, MBE, and Unicorn Managing Director Mr. Edward Lowy, three times World Champion Mr. John Lowe, and Dr. Patrick Chaplin, PhD, I became inspired to try and find a set of these darts for my collection.
The Wisden Silver Comet has on the bottom of the inside of box lid has "patent #484292". On the nose of the dart barrel right by where the point and barrel meet is engraved "Wisden Comet & patent #484292". Inside the box is also enclosed an original envelope containing extra Comet spare flights. The envelope has a drawing of one of the flights being inserted into the slotted shaft, and then on the left side of the drawing says: "4 Sets", then on right side of drawing of flight says "3D'". At the bottom of the envelope it says "Spare Comet flights. Accurate size, correct weight. Fold in half and slip into slot of flight holder. RED"
I have a second set of Silver Comets dating from 1939, which I won about a year and a half ago, but the second set says on the box lid "Unicorn Silver Comets" rather than "John Wisden Silver Comets". The Unicorn Silver Comets have feather flights which are attached to a wooden toothpick like spigot which slides down inside the slotted shaft, and then the patented screw cap screws over the top of the shaft. I've never heard of another set with such feather flights, as the only other sets I've ever seen have paper "Comet" flights, or else plastic flights that come in 2 "v " shaped halves which slide down into the shaft. The Unicorn Silver Comets have the same patent #484292 engraved on the nose of the dart barrel, but on the inside of the bottom of the box lid the Unicorn Silver Comet box has the following added patent pending info as well: Patent #484292. Patent pending #7205/39.
2) “Unicorn "Silver Comets" dating from 1950's
I won the EBay bid for these about a week and a half ago. These darts were listed on EBay as just "Vintage Darts" and from the photo looked interesting, in an old leather type snap case. It was kind of hard to tell much detail from the photo about what make they were or possibly what vintage, but the shafts looked interesting, so I put an inexpensive bid in and won. Imagine my surprise when I opened the package and saw the shafts and flights up close and saw that they were a set of Unicorn Silver Comets of later vintage than either the Wisden or Unicorn sets I had dating from 1939. The shafts were the same slotted aluminum shafts with the patented crew cap on the top, and Red "Comet" paper flights. The barrels were of a different style than the other 2 sets of Silver Comets I had. Looking thru the historical section of Unicorn's website the earliest representation I
could find of these was in the 1950 Unicorn "Book of Darts" on page 22.
These "Silver Comets" were manufactured in 3 weights, 13, 19 and 30 grams, and the set I won feels like it's 19 grams, as they're too heavy for 13 grams, and not heavy enough for 30 grams.
It was quite fun to win these 2 recent bids on EBay.
My advice to fellow collectors would be: "Keep looking, and keep your hopes up!" as rare or interesting sets do become available from time to time. If I can manage to find 2 sets of "Silver Comet's" within 2 months then anything might turn up! Except for the Wisden Silver Comet's, most of my other vintage darts have been won by bids of $25 or less.
The majority of my vintage sets are Unicorn sets due to the company's long 70 year history, consistent innovation, and huge range of products then and now, they've been more prevalent than sets by any other manufacturer I've found.
Some of the vintage Unicorn sets from the 1950's and early 1960's in dark green, or yellow cardboard boxes contain small leaflets describing some of Unicorn's products available at the time. Such sets with in cardboard boxes with the promotional flyers still enclosed are nice ones to find. Other types of packaging from the 1950's that are nice to find would be sets in Bakelite boxes.
Sets in slightly later types of packaging would be such as the "Ultrapack" plastic hinged cases dating from the early to mid 1960's, or the two piece plastic cases with creme or black back with a clear top. Such Ultrapack cases often have the month and year in digits on the back of the case and the two piece cases often have the month and year on the point holder.
One Ultrapack set I have is a set of Tom Barrett darts with the original promotional booklet written by Tom Barrett and Unicorn, along with the original Jiffy Dart sharpener. Other sets I have in the two piece type of case are some of the Gold Plated "Ambassador" darts and another set of "Tom Barrett" darts, such 2 piece cases still having the original cardboard slipcovers over the plastic cases.
I try and find sets where the feather flights are in better shape, or where the cases are in better shape. I don't know about the value of such things in terms of an "Antiques Roadshow" sort of thing, as a collector it's just fun to try and find the best conditioned sets, or sets that might be rarer, or seem interesting to me.
Have fun darting, and happy collecting !
Cheers,
Glen Huff