Ambassador, sorry for hijacking your thread but your post brought back many memories that were buried deep in my subcontious mind.

GSI,

I still have my Daniel Boone "Muzzle Loader" with the ramrod. Wood stock, 24" barrel and brass patch box that held the cork balls. Sadly, all of the original cork balls were shot to God only knows where. I also still have the Mattel M-16, black with gold painted front and rear stock. Pull back on the "Op rod" and it made a "clackita clackita" sound while a red piece of tubular plastic jumped in and out of the end of the barrel to simulate live fire. Sadly it no longer functions. I also have my M1 and my 1903. Both have wooden stocks and what is metal on the originals is metal on the toys that I have. The op rod on the Garand still works but the bolt no longer moves, op rod broke away fom the bolt where they were welded together. The Garand was for all practical purposes a single shot as it worked by pulling the op rod back after each shot to cam down the plastic strip caps. The 1903 is a single shot that had the plastic bullets that fired out of the barrel. I remember getting real smart when I was about nine or ten and putting three or four caps on top of each other by folding them over and placing them under the "Firing pin" and firing the plastic bullet. It seamed to launch that piece of plastic at least twice as far as a single cap. But the best ones I had and still have are a brace of Colt 1873's w/leather holster and wood grips that my dad picked up while on a business trip to Hartford, CT about 1965-66. He got them at the Colt factory. He use to write the insurance for Colt and this was one of the items that Colt gave him. He told them that he had three sons and all three of us ended up with a brace of Colt 1873 roll cap cap guns. I went by his house about a year ago and asked him if he still had them in one of the boxes in the attic. He kwew exactly where they were and directed me to them in less than three minutes. If memory serves me right they were a high polished blue. After 45+ years of sitting in his attic they are no longer a high polish and starting to turn into a brace of brown revolvers. No pot metal on these babies, they are made from blued carbon steel. They are now on display hanging in their original holsters and belt mounted above my safe in my office. I don't remember doing this, but the holsters have been changed to a dual cross draw format by removing the holsters from the belt and changing left to right and right to left. The only way I know this is my dad pulled out a Polaroid picture of my two brothers and I wearing the Colts that he snapped on the day he gave them to us. Any way, this thread has brought back many many good thoughts of my childhood.

Thanks for the memories,

David