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You might remember that these molded Unispheres turn up occasionally in the collectables market, on eBay or wherever. But they are very hard to find.
Several collectors had identified them as having come from a molderama vending machine, because they have the telltale double injection holes in the bottom, and the right kind of material- what we've come to refer to as 'waxy-plastic'.
Yet there were others who argued that holes in the bottom are common to many different kinds of injection molding manufacturers and there is nothing to indicate that these were molded on demand by the customer, as opposed to being fabricated at a factory and sold at the Fair as a souvenir. And nobody had ever seen a machine at the Fair, except for the Sinclair machines, which we finally pinpointed in photos two or three years ago.
YET....there are several other known World's Fair molderama figures, and we've been unsuccessful at pinpointing where those machines were located either.
FINALLY....while watching "March Madness" on TV this afternoon and scanning World's Fair slides at the same time, I was scanning some slides of the Billy Graham Pavilion, and what should pop out but the words Mold-A-Rama on a big banner! Wow! THAT got my attention!
So did Mold-A-Rama have their own Pavilion that somehow got overlooked? No, this closeup reveals that the banner was telling visitors that they could mold their own Unisphere right here! And there's the machine under the little canopy. (A couple of the dinosaur molderama machines at Sinclair had identical canopies early in the '64 season).
SO WE FINALLY FOUND THE DARNED MACHINE!!! It's at a Brass Rail souvenir stand right next door to the Billy Graham Pavilion.
This photo is 1965 (from features in other pictures on the roll- the slide mounts are Agfachrome and not dated at all).
So....the next question is....was this machine also there in the '64 season? And why haven't we spotted it before?
Time to go to the "archive"....
....and SURE ENOUGH- there's a single solitary September '64 picture in the archive, of that same location, and there it is! Why didn't I notice it before? I remember looking at this picture and pouring over what could be seen INSIDE the gift shop, in high resolution. That little awning didn't get my attention, and there was no Mold-A-Rama banner to point out its presence.
But looking at it now, there are clearly two bubble-top machines under that awning. I wonder if BOTH of them produced Unispheres? Maybe one of them was that John F. Kennedy head?
Now we know- everybody watch out for awnings with scalloped cloth roofs in NYWF souvenir stand photos!!
