ASKING FOR THE MOON

  

I've had a fascination with our nearest neighbour from an early age, but as I grew older and began to appreciate the significance of the Moon and its features, I started to invest in maps and quite recently a large moon globe. The globe was an ebay purchase, sold loose, with little in the way of information, although the seller did remark - as I collected it in person at Preston railway station!- that her Dad had owned it and it originally had a stand, which was now lost. Taking possession of it, in a large plastic shopping bag, I found it was blow moulded plastic, quite heavy, with surface relief details, hand painted decoration and decals applied. Luckily, its previous owner had also varnished it, so everything was still intact, including the little stickers showing the moon landing sites.

As it was loose, I had no idea of what it was, or who had made it, but during a recent ebay trawl for a more conventional globe, I found another identical one, listed as a 'Wightman Moon Globe' from 1970. The seller suggested that it was supplied as an unpainted kit form, which the owner could paint and apply the decals to.

This example had suffered over the years and lost some of the paint and stickers and also the original stand. It does look very similar to my own version, so I assume there would have been painting guides and instructions and possibly specific paints provided. So, armed with this new information, I did a quick internet search and found that the Royal Museum at Greenwich have a copy of the globe in their archival collections, which also includes the original box, stand and instruction sheet.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-388811

Reproduced courtesy of RMG

Its safe to assume that the Wightman Lunaglobe would have been a premium item, intended for specialists rather than children and would probably have been quite expensive. The record also shows the original stand, so now I can set about making a suitable stand for my own model.

Above is a print of the moon rock, brought back from Apollo 11, which was on display in Liverpool Museum at around the same time the Wightman globes would have been available and one of the things which started me down the path of all things lunar.