I remember my first toy gun. It was a cap gun modeled after a small semiauto pistol. I somehow acquired it at around the age of 4 or 5 about the time World War II ended. It was fun to make it go "bang" and somehow it fascinated me. Like a real gun, I cleaned it and lubed it with some 3-in-1 oil my grandfather had left in the basement of their house which was located in front of ours. Over the years, it disappeared.

Many years later, at an antique show in Phoenix I found an exact duplicate of that little toy, and in a fit of nostalgia, I bought it. Here are a couple of photos.







I still have this little piece of nostalgia in my den; a fun reminder of a pleasant time in my way younger years.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience and/or pictures. It might be interesting to wander down memory lane and revisit your first toy gun -

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

First I recall was one of those or a Hubley Trooper, which resembles a break-top S&W .38. pretended it was a Webley MK VI until I got a real one at age 13. My first actual handgun...

Many Nichols, Hubley, etc. Colt SAA copies and Civil War guns.

I had a double shotgun marked Dragnet that I pretended was a .465 H&H. I liked cowboys, but my main heroes were white hunters, fighter pilots, and cops.

I had cast alloy Luger, P-38, & Mauser C-96 from Lytle Novelty Co. A friend had their Colt Cobra and 1911.

I had just started school, I got a Roy Rogers set ,a shirt, double holster and 2 6 guns and chaps for Christmas.

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Carpriver.

That’s wonderful that you came across your first cap gun and were able to reacquire it. I don’t even remember my first... It was there before my memory starts.

I do recall being with my mom in a general store, and standing, waist high to her, if that, looking up at a wall of shelves and being asked which cap gun I wanted. They were boxed. I pointed waaaaay up there at the one I had in mind. The proprietor retrieved the one on the shelf below and handed it to me. I was too reticent to say I wanted the one above it.

(A learning experience, I’m sure, as I can tell from my remembering it these many years later. I’ve come to be a lot less reticent since.)

Still, I was pleased to have it anyway!

I don't really remember if it was the first one or not, but I had a home
made gun when I was a kid. We would cut the rough shape of a pistol
out of a piece of wood about an inch thick. Then fasten a cloths pin to
the back of the grip. Then cut a rubber inner tube into little bands about
half inch wide. Then clip a bit of the tube into the cloths pin and stretch
the remainder of the band out and over the end of the barrel. When
we squeezed the grip the cloths pin would release the rubber band and
it would go flying kinda in the direction the pistol was pointed.

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In Omnia Paratus

A series of very cheap cap guns, usually hand-me-downs from my older brother.

Maybe that's where I got my fondness for M-frames.

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SWCA #3356, SWHF#611

From what I remember mine were revolvers with the cow boy holsters. I have a couple of old semi auto pistols hanging in my gun room that my father in law had but not sure where he got them.

First one that was memorable was a Fanner 50 . Awesome gun and holster! I have been hooked on 6guns ever since.

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Hue 68 noli me tangere

And here is my last toy gun. I found the black holster first, and figured
maybe something like a 1903 Colt pistol would fit in it, but I didn't want
to go looking and spend the money for a 1903 Colt.

So I bought this Hubley, which is approximately the size of a 1903 Colt.
It did fit fine. I gave the gun and holster to a great grandson.

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In Omnia Paratus

I was well outfitted by 1958

Must have been a VERY good boy to score the scooter and the bow and arrows, along with the cap guns, on Christmas! And my sisters thought I was spoiled. Ha!

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Some collect art; I shoot it!

My rather liberal future daughter in law asked me when I got interested
in guns. In other words, have you always been crazy? I showed her a picture of me when I was about five, with a complete Hoppilong Cassidy outfit
with 2 cap guns. In spite of this, she married my son and we get along great.

Willyboy

I was 5 years old when I got my first toy gun, and I can still clearly remember getting it. We were out to dinner at Fisher’s on Castor Ave in Northeast Philly and I was telling my grandfather, “Pop”, how much I needed a gun so I wouldn’t have to borrow other kids guns. Pop decided I was right, and announced we would get one that night. After dinner we went to Kiddie City and I picked out a pair of Single Action cap guns, nickel with stag grips, with a double holster. All of the finest cast metal and plastic. I was the happiest kid in Philly. I still have the guns and holster in a box in the attic.

In no time at all I was the most heavily armed kid around, thanks in large part to Pop. I soon had toy versions of almost every gun you could think of, and was always carrying at least one. If I was a kid now I’d probably get locked up.

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Wheel guns are real guns.

Mine was a shiny metal cowboy style cap gun. I had the holster cowboy shirt and hat. somewhere there is a photo of me in the rig if I come across it I'll post it. Many a roll of caps went through it, we didn't have ammo shortages back then! If you did just holler " Bang, Bang! got ya first!"
Steve W

I was really into cap guns as a youngster. I had quite an accumulation, and when I came of age, my interest naturally progressed to real guns. I was a child of the 1970s and 80s. Does anyone remember Edison cap guns made in Italy? They were very good quality (for a toy cap gun), and more realistic in appearance than most. I had quite a few Edisons, including a PPK lookalike with a removable magazine, which accepted a strip of caps. I felt very cool as a lad dropping a mag and slapping a fresh one into place. I was also into Entertech water guns, also known for their realistic appearance. I believe both companies, Edison and Entertech, were at some point and somehow required to change their designs to look less realistic, as criminals were using them in robberies.

I've always been crazy too, but it's kept me from going insane.
With thanks to Waylon Jennings.

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In Omnia Paratus

I had a pair of Lone Ranger cap guns. I can remember one time that my late mother took them apart, oiled them and reassembled them.

Canner 50 and an Egyptian surplus .43 cal. Remington Rolling Block rifle.

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Eccentric old coot

I can't remember the brand names but I had a pair of cap "six guns", dual holsters, hat, vest and boots (oh yes, the sheriffs star too). I remember the smoke from the caps actually came out of the barrel! Grew up in the 70s.

Fast forward to the late 90's when my boys were young. Bought them cap guns as well but my wife couldn't find caps anywhere. She finally asked and was told that, in the town we lived in at the time, caps guns could be sold but caps for the cap guns was illegal. How stupid is that? So, told my wife to go to the next town over and buy the blasted caps. She asked me if we really should but I didn't give a rip. Told her if the city didn't have anything better to do than bust kids with caps in cap guns on our own property then we'll move. We did move but nobody ever complained or showed up...

I had one of those PPK’s, got it at Ports of the World. Those Edison guns were impressively real looking, and had a actual magazine. I remember I picked the PPK because it was the gun on “The Equalizer”. The 80’s were great for toy guns. After 2020 I really miss the 80’s.

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Wheel guns are real guns.

1960's Western style cap gun with holster and hat , despite the opinions of snowflakes today never wanted to to shoot anyone except bad guys

I had a rock in a butter tub. Dad called it a redneck rattle . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

A genuine Mattel FANNER 50 with leather holder. Spring loaded cases with snap in plastic bullets. Put stick-on cap on the back, load and fire at a target.

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S&W Accumulator

I really can't remember the first toy gun. Cap guns, water pistols, loved them all. Did have a Fanner 50 too.

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No baby we aint

Apparently my first one was this Luger, with which I am threatening this bunny. My Dad was a newspaper editor and this probably bore some headline like “Local Boy With Abnormally Large Head Assaults Bunny With Nazi Gun”.

The first one I remember is this dart gun, which instilled me with a lifelong love of all things Beretta.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

My mom has a photo of me when I was about 3 or 4, wearing a tank commander helmet and surrounded by a bunch of toy guns, including a bazooka. I don't even remember it. It didn't hurt that my dad was recently a Marine at the time. I had all the coolest toys. Dad and I both had battery operated tanks, and we'd build houses with Lincoln Logs, then drive the tanks over them.

The toy gun I really remember was my Johnny Eagle .45 auto. I was about 5 or 6, and it seemed huge. You could load it like a real gun, and the spring-operated ammo went pretty far. I can't help but think that my dad bought me most of them so he could play with them too. When I was 10 I got a Mattel M-16 Marauder and it was loud. I shot it next to mom and dad's bedroom early on a Sunday morning, then handed it to my sister before I went downstairs. She still gives me **** about that! That same Christmas I also got a Crosman 760, but that got treated like a real rifle.

Mine was a cap firing SMG! I think it was Mattel who made a cap firing copy of the M3 Grease Gun where the mechanism had to be wound-up and the spring mechanism would fire the perforated caps. My parent hated it as neither of them liked guns. I was banished to the playground in the next block over to shoot it because it "made too much noise in the backyard." With all of the caps being fired in the gun and it not being cleaned (what 9 year old knows about gun cleaning) the wind-up mechanism started rusting. The toy was banished to the separate garage where the humid weather worked it wonders. A few years later the mechanism was rusted solid and in one garage cleaning, the cap firing M3 replica disappeared.

As Paul Harvey would say, "Here is the rest of the story." Having grown up into a gun collector, that M3 cap firing SMG never left my mind. Many years ago I came across a fellow who was selling a NFA Registered M3A1 and I decided to relive my childhood. I purchased it from him so I now have my childhood dream, a real M3A1 capable of shooting .45ACP ammo instead of caps. Even as a concession to my parents (long since passed away) I have added a suppressor to the gun!

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Bill

My toy guns were wood that my Dad made.

My first toy gun was a M-16. The father of a older boy who lived across the road saw that we really liked playing with the BB gun he had given his son. He made us each a child sized M-16 out of plywood. It was wonderful!!! My brother and I were only 5 yrs. old, probably a little young to be running around w/ BB guns. Sincerely. bruce.

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<><

my first toy gun was a revolver of some kind. It was a real gun that I found in a field next to my house. It was missing the cylinder and some rusty. My dad said I could keep it and even oiled it so the hammer would pull back. I don't think I could pull the trigger even if it worked because I was 5 at the time. I carried that thing every where. Had to use both hands to point it. If a kid found something like that now and was seen carrying it they would haul him off to Leavenworth. I now wish I knew what kind of gun it was.

I had so many John, hard to tell which was first. I do remember some Hubley autos that had reddish orange plastic grips. I also remember a metal or tin revolver looking thing that clicked when you pulled the trigger. I think I also had one like you pictured. I had a Mattel lever action rifle and a Fanner 50 might have been one of my last. Right at the end of the toys, there was also a Mattel nickel snub that looked like a DS or Smith M-10. It came with a plastic shoulder holster. It might be the reason all of my Smith revolvers are nickel.

That is it..........
that's the one that I started off with, also.

Loved the smell of burnt caps, when you opened up the side plate, to reload and get back at those BG's !!

Thanks for the memories.

I cant recall my first, my uncle who was in the service at the time had some metal guns that I think were lighters or cap guns. When my grandparents saw me with them they went away.

I'm sure I had some cap or dart (suctioncup) guns. I can recall a cowboy set too, but what really sticks out is a "pop" gun rifle. I know it was a Daisy, lever-operated made a pop with a burst of air from the barrel, maybe a 960? It was a great toy for playing cowboys and indians with kids in the neighboor hood. I learned that if I were to push the barrel into the dirt and give a twist the barrel would hold dirt in it. It became a dirt shot gun of sorts, nice mud on your friends clothes was a big hit!

The one I remember most was a neat Single action style cap pistol with a screw on barrel extension and detachable shoulder stock to make it into a rifle. My Grandmother or Uncle one gave it to me for my birthday in Marion Ohio in the late 1950's.

Just looked it up and it was called a Restless Gun - 1957 circa. Found a photo on line also

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Sceva
OGCA SWCA NRA

7 years old, Xmas present, two gun Lone Ranger silver cap gun and holster rig. So proud of them wouldn't take them off, even slept in them for the first week. Anything and everything in my neighborhood both two legged and four legged was drawn on and shot multiple times...lol

It wasn't my first cap gun (I had many of them when I was a kid), but the one that stands out in my mind was different from most, and I have never seen another. It was a "Pirate" pistol that resembled an 18th Century flintlock pistol, except it had a double O/U barrel. The stock was brown plastic. You put a single cap in where the hammer could hit it. At that time you could get caps in perforated sheets, and could tear them off one at a time, like the way postage stamps used to be sold. My favorite way to use it would be to put a 1-1/2" firecracker in the muzzle and light the fuse. Just like shooting a real gun. That was back when firecrackers were more powerful. The barrel never blew up after hundreds of firecrackers had been used in it. Great fun.

Back in my old southern Ohio home town there once had been, back around the early part of the 20th Century, a factory that made toy cap guns and caps. There was an explosion in the cap manufacturing area which destroyed much of the building and killed several women workers, actually young girls.

This one here, a rather small cap gun, I would guess I got it when I was about 3 years old. The little cowboy book I received on my 4th birthday.

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It would have been a Roy Rogers or Gene Autry cap gun like this one. Although we would get a bigger bang by hitting a whole roll of caps with a hammer

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John

My first was a strange one, it was around 1946. The gun used suction on paper (not paper caps) to create the bang. It was very mechanical and very hard to shoot, wore my hand out trying. I wonder if anyone remembers this one, I can't find many who do.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Does anyone remember a six shooter cap gun that came with 6 bullets that fit in a cartridge case where you pulled out the "bullet", placed a round cap under the "bullet", and you only had six shots. You had to reload like a real gun. I think I had one when I was in the 5th grade? Playing cowboy was the neighborhood sport of the times in the early '50s.

I have photos of myself in the fifties, wearing a cowboy hat and shirt, double holsters and cowboy boots/neckerchief.
I don't remember the cap guns, but I still have one set of boots from when I was probably no more than five.(circa 1957)
I do remember owning the same little DICK auto as the OP.
I also remember owning something that looked like an 1842 Aston. Wood stock with a metal tube barrel. At a little older age, I would try to chuck a firecracker down the tube, and anything that I could find, as a projectile.
And a Mattel Winchester, which remained here until I peddled it on ebay. Also had a Mattel snubnose .38, which fired plastic bullets from its spring loaded cartridges.(I tried to make that more accurate, by taping on a piece of plastic "pipe" from my Lionel rail car.)
Even though I've sold off my gun collection and no longer shoot, perhaps those early formative years are why I'm still tempted to buy a Colt SAA that I know about.

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I had one of those when I was kid The brand was Nichols I think. Saw one new in the box on the Antiques Road show. Was worth some bucks.

I'm pretty sure I've told the story before, but the only "toy gun" I remember playing with as a child was a genuine, honest-to-God Smith & Wesson revolver. Nope, not a joke.

Having two great uncles that worked at the mothership their entire adult lives (back when Smith & Wesson was still owned by the Wesson family), it's not really all that surprising that they put together a 100% non-functional S&W revolver from mismatched junk parts for me to play with.

No, you could never get away with that today. Can you even imagine the horror? A little kid running around with a "real" S&W revolver? My parents and I would be on the front page of the newspaper when the cops found out from the neighbors!

But it was a different time. A VERY different time. It was just another nifty toy in my little kid's toy box.

Funny thing is that I never found out what happened to that gun after I grew up and went away to college. From time to time I ask my very elderly mother what happened to it, but she doesn't know. I'm guessing that the old man threw it away once there were no kids left at home to play with it.

I can't remember if this was the first one, but it's the one I always remember:

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USAF 1981 - 2001

I don’t remember my first toy gun but the ones that I remember were the Johnny Eagle from the mid 60’s. My brother and I had the Red River set. Six Shooter and lever rifle. They fired those plastic bullets that were spring loaded onto the “brass” (also plastic). I believe the other sets were the Lieutenant (M14 and 1911) and the Megumba (Bolt rifle and what looked like an auto-mag). We loved them. I see them on EBay but the prices put me off.

The first I remember were a pair of Fanner 50's. Dad had the local shoe shop (friends) make a nice western double rig. Great fun.
TB

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frontsightnsqueaz

I think mine was a silver Hop-a-long Cassidy cap shooter. I wore it along with my Davy Crockett coonskin cap.

Does a "Johnny Reb" cannon, circa 1963 when I was 4 count?

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paws for friendship

My 5th Christmas and I'll never for get this one. It was at once one of the best and one of the worst.

I got a complete Hoppalong Cassidy outfit: hat, boots, fringe shirt, fringe cuffs, neckerchief and double gun and holster set. Hoppy was my favorite cowboy back then and my joy was complete...almost.

But I was sicker'n 3 dogs. 103 deg.F fever. sore throat, tonsillitis. It was about 34 deg.F outside and windy and none of the other kids was outside playing with their new stuff.

My mother let me sit out on the front steps for a few minutes and then made me come in. I laid down under the Christmas tree and fell asleep.

But I got plenty of use out of it over the next couple of years. All my friends had to call me Hoppy when we were playing cowboys and Indians.

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Real men love cats!

My very first play gun was somewhat like the previous story of a real gun. It was a heavily rusted H&R solid frame revolver (don't remember the caliber, just that it was an H&R and not a top break) that the neighbor across the street from us dug up in his back yard and gave it to me as a plaything. I was probably no older than six or seven at the time. I always wondered how it got there in his back yard. No idea of whatever happened to it, my mom probably threw it away.

I remember that in early grade school, many of the boys brought cap guns to school to play "Cowboy" during recess. (Bang! Bang! You're dead. No I'm not, you missed.) I can't imagine that game is allowed in grade schools today.