DESTROYER MIRROR
1977, MMW
A very confusing back story to these - some accounts show that Brytone/MMW had started making their own unlicensed mirrors and Bill Aucoin found out, saw how he could make money and forced them to license the range at a hugely beneficial price in KISS’ favour (much like he would do with Campus Craft production of Canadian bootleg posters). The company announced that they had the official license via an ad dated 1978 - yet the two mirrors here say 1977 - and even pictured a whole bunch of KISS mirrors of varying quality (mostly terrible drawings and no KISS logos). What makes the story even stranger is an internal memo from late-1977 lists Boutwell cohort, Barry Imhoff (who also did the scarves) as the licensee and not MMW! We present two theories here: Theory 1/ They are official: Having signed with Aucoin, the company added the logos to the two square mirrors and was given permission to sell the others. The company’s material certainly lists order numbers and prices and an Aucoin stamp has been added to a plain cardboard packaging with no other graphics. OR Theory 2/: Only the two square mirrors are official. Although the ad says they have signed with KISS, it’s clear at the time of publishing these ads the company did not have possession of the official KISS logo - as can be seen below. This leads many to believe the company jumped the gun with the adverts and Aucoin Management only ever approved the square mirrors leaving the other crude prototypes to be thought of as “unofficial mirrors from a company that produced two official mirrors”. KISS did not allow any other items to be released without their logo, why would they do so here? The company may have sneakily tried to move this stock by adding an Aucoin stamp to their packaging as they thought they may not be caught. The appearance on the advert neither confirms nor denies their official status. What do you think? A super rare 8x8-inch version and regular-sized 12x12-inch version of the Love Gun mirror (possibly prototypes) exist with black backgrounds instead of mirrored parts. This made them unusable as mirrors - it’s thought these were production copies for colour-proofing the art before having the black area etched out). They also had a fold-out cardboard stand so you could display them if you did not want to hang them on your wall.