I will post up my current grabs and notes for whom may be interested.
Like Star Trek, Space: 1999 seems to have higher-quality foreground props as well as crappier background props (tho as we will see the crappy ones are often pressed into service for closeups!)
Here's a closeup laser stungun prop from "Breakaway". One could call it a "hero" (tho even hero props had no working parts except perhaps a "plungable" trigger). Note the flat top (no stun/kill switch).
Even tho "Breakaway" is the first episode, this prop looks pretty beat up - note that two of the four colored squares on the side of the grip are missing.
The tapered conical knobs on the sides (under the trigger) look as though they could be metal. Also the "emitters" in front appear to be metal.
When large multiples of lasers were needed, the propmakers mass-produced vacuform shells (this shot is from "Alpha Child" early in the first season).
For the first season episode "Full Circle" it was necessary to have a big honking SWITCH on the prop so that setting the weapon from "stun" to "kill" could be done in a dramatic close-up. For this scene a makeshift slide switch was added to the top of the laser.
In the second season, a more refined (but still overlarge and ugly) Stun/Kill switch was rigged up, with the type turned around so the viewer could see it even in a medium shot. This switch appeared on most of the hero props after that point.
Also in the second season "crapazoid" vacuform shells were often seen in the hands of the main actors, or even in screen-filling closeup shots!
Here's Maya's opened-up laser from "All That Glisters" (second season). Evidently this is just one half of a crapazoid vacform shell, with electronic tubes and wires and crap thrown in.
In the case of the commlock prop, the "working" hero video-screen commlock was only used in featured closeups; that prop appears to be slightly larger than the one usually seen.
Most commlock props were just solid blocks, with labels in place of buttons, although the main actors often had chips of plastic for buttons.
For replicas, the commlock to beat right now would be CYProductions... this is claimed to have been copied directly from a midgrade screenused prop.
Right now the best laser stungun replica comes from SIDkit in Italy. A kit is sold thru their website, and he has builtup replicas from time to time on Ebay.
I think the tiny type on the commlock ID card and also on that black-and-gray gridded label on the bottom cube of the prop, all came from the copyright info at the bottom Letraset dry transfer lettering sheets.
The lettering sheets were made in both black and white.
This kind of dry transfer lettering is very fragile and tends to flake off. They would have sprayed it with a fixative, but on-set handling would have just destroyed it. (my guess is that they took a photograph of the label and then reproe'd that for the actual props).
Also they probably didn't want the type to be readable even in closeup, so they just rubbed down random letters to make a jumble. I think it's intended to represent a sort of "futuristic" version of the bar code labels that were just starting to be used at that time (1975),
Also note how the lines on the grid seem hand-drawn. Or possibly hand-applied rule-tape I suppose.
In "Missing Link" (above) they've rotated the picture just for that one shot, so you can see it better in the camera angle! :lol
Speaking of wacky commlocks, Koenig seemed to always have a different photo on the side of his ... in "Ring Around the Moon" he does away with the ID card completely and just has a big imperial portrait of his glowering mug...
- Karl
