Mold 4

Wham-O Flying Saucer 5 (WFS5) Mold 4

We know very little about Mold 4. Mold 4 raises questions, but there are no answers. We have estimated that Mold 4 was made in 1960.

4 Mold characteristics are: On the front 4 molds have 24 portholes like other Flying Saucers, but they are oval. But why are the portholes oval, when in all other molds they are round?  The word Frisbee is followed by a medium-sized ® symbol. Line 5 of the bottom script starts slightly to the left of lines 2–4.  A large exclamation mark at the end of line 4. In line 5 MFG.CO.SAN is written together in the same way as in mold 3. There is a large mold number 4 on the bottom.

WFS5 is the fourth Flying Saucer produced by Wham-O. Its numbering should be corrected to number 4 or LBFS1 should be numbered as number 2 so that the Flying Saucer numbering on the FDM pages is correct!

Date Introduced: 1960

Wham-O Flying Saucer 6 (WFS6) Mold 4

There is another version of Mold 4 Flying Saucer. There is only one change. A \ character has been added in front of the mold number in the lower left corner. Again, we don't know the answer to this question, why? Furthermore, we are not sure when this version was made. One of the \4 Flying Saucers I bought came with Wham-O throwing instructions. They were updated for 1964. Of course, we can't be sure if the instructions originally belonged to this Flying Saucer. But this flimsy evidence is still the best we have.

Date Introduced: 1964

There is an extra 4 mm long line on the front nipple between approximately 7 and 9 o'clock. This is rare and has been found in both versions WFS5 and WFS6. The matter has not been investigated further, but my own theory is that the mold defect occurred shortly before the end of WFS5 production. And the defect was quickly fixed when WFS6 production began. There is no answer yet as to why the mold flaw is not in the same place between different versions.

The red WFS5 is from Phil Kennedy's collections and the orange WFS6 is from Marvin Paul's collections.

Wham-O Regular \4 pat. pend. Mold 4

In 1966, Wham-O changed the Flying Saucers to Regulars. The front of the disc was significantly changed. The planets, portholes, Flying Saucer text, and four rings were removed. Inner and outer Flying Rings were added. In 4 molds, there are 14 Inner and 33 Outer Flying Rings.The texts Wham-O and Frisbee were enlarged and the font was changed. The ® symbol after the word Frisbee was also changed. Flying Saucer molds can be identified by the ® symbol, just like regular molds. Each Regular has a unique ® symbol. In mold 4, the letter R is medium-sized and is centered in the upper left corner.

PAT. PEND. text replaced the text DES.PAT.183626.

The mold numbering remained the same \4.

Date Introduced: 1966

Wham-O Regular 4 pat. pend. Mold 4

Date Introduced: 1967

Pat. Pend. Regular with a 1966 Flying Saucer cardboard backing
In 1964, Wham-O packaged Flying Saucers in white cardboard. But there is another version of this white background cardboard, the 1966 version. It is easily distinguishable from the previous cardboard background by the straight exclamation mark after the word Crazy and the year 1966 in the lower left corner. Theory is that the first Pat. Pend. Regulars are currently in these packages. So at least mold 3 and /4. Pat. Pend. Regular. Mystery Y Regulars (Mold 6 and 7) have also been found in 1966 Flying Saucer packages. Even though this disc is packaged, a small hole was cut in the cardboard, allowing us to confirm it is a /4 mold.

In 1967, the Regulars had their own package with a purple background. The very first Slip Sheets featured Pat. Pend. on the bottom of the print. In these packages we have so far found mold 4, 5 and 11 Pat. Pend. Regulars. 

Wham-O Regular Wham-O Frisbee® Mold 4

The next change was in 1968, because Wham-O received the patent on December 26, 1967. The symbol © and the year 1966 were added at the beginning of line 5. 1966 is the year when production of Regular products began. The addition of the year and the © symbol was done carelessly. The symbol © is too low on the line and the C is not in the middle of the circle. The number 9 is too high and the spacing between the numbers is not even. In line 6, the text pat pend were removed and it was changed to: U.S. PAT. NO. 3,359,678.

Paper label on the disc:

It is rare that a Regular with such an early mold number has an ad. It is also very rare that the ad covered the entire Frisbee except for the Headrick lines. The ad is from 1977.

"The Memorable Movie Machine": This was a movie program aired on San Francisco's KPIX 5. "The Flying Disc Man from Mars": Frisbee mentions a 12-part serial that the channel aired as part of its programming. This was a campaign to promote the old science fiction series (originally released in 1950) in connection with its reruns in 1977.

Wham-O Regular Regular Frisbee®, Sport Games Script, Mold 4

The last change to mold 4 was in 1973. The top reads REGULAR FRISEE® and the bottom features the Wham-O splash, Laurels, and the ™ symbol. The year of manufacture of a disc can be determined by the TM below the laurel leaves, not the ® symbol, which came later than the ™ symbol. The Sport Games Script was added to the bottom of the disc, which reads: "FRISBEE is a REG. T.M. of WHAM-O MFG CO.; For Flying Saucers Used in Sport Games." The Sport Games script was introduced after the Toss games script.

Date Introduced: 1973