Old Fashioned Cap Guns-Toy Guns from the 1930's to 1960

Bell Charter Oak Holsters

Bell Charter Oak Holsters

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Man, as a kid we (my brothers and I) had a trunk full of toy guns. Pistols, revolver, rifles, machine guns....even a bazooka! Still have a few, gave most of them to the newest additions to the clan when they came of age. Hubley's, Pony Boy's, a few Italian cast metal pieces. I hung on to a few that sit in some western tooled holsters I've made over the years, on display in the shop. Hell they were a bunch of fun. What ya' got?

The youngest child of my neighbor, an 8 year old farm boy, came to our place Halloween. He got himself a pair of six shooters (shoots rubber darts) that we recently discovered packed away in a closet. Bought them 30 years ago for 2 of my nieces to play with. It was the beginning of teaching them firearms safety, and encouraged safe firearms handling skills.

What a deal, a big bag of candy and a couple six guns. It was worth a million bucks to see that bright eyed kids reaction. Now I suppose I'll have to make him a holster or two.

Cheers;
Lefty
 
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Nicely done! My introduction to firearms was much the same as yours. Mom agreed to let Dad get my brother and I each a Daisy toy levergun for Christmas...it wasn't electric, but somehow made a band and ricochet noise. It was one of the best gifts ever, until we got our actual 30-30 Winchesters! Great memories. I am confident your little neighbor will treasure those dart guns!
 
oldflatfoot, you done good!

I once gave a kid who was "into" dinosaurs my big box of toy dinosaurs I had as a kid. It was a joy to see his joy.

I had toy guns from the "market", but none of them were as realistic "appearing" as the real thing. But I made do.

My Dad was a carpenter so I would wander into his shop and take what I thought was "scrap" and make wooden guns that were nailed and taped together. None of them were as realistic "appearing" as the real thing. But I made do......until Dad found my stash of 30 woodend guns and got mad....it seems that some of the "scrap" I picked out was finish lumber that "dissappeared" from his shop before he could use it.

THEN....about 1963 I found the ads in the hunting magazines for M1911s, Luger, Walthers, Nambus, M1903s, M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, Mausers, and Arisakas for what I thought were cheap prices. And all we had to do was be over 18 and order them through the mail directly to the house!!!

I was ecstatic!! I could get ALL of the "necessary" weapons I needed (I couldn't get the machine guns though) to play "Army/Marines" in WWI and WWII!!!!

But I was only TEN at the time. Soooo it was off to Dad and "Can you buy..........?"

His answer "No." In his quiet but firm manner. I also made the mistake of asking this question in front of Mom. She just had to throw in her two cents, butting into what I considered a "private" conversation. She said something like, "You don't need that...you will probalby just shoot yourself."

I learned right then never set yourself up for an "ambush" by both parents. Always "work" the most logical one out of sight of the other.:D

I later approached Dad in real privacy and pleaded my case ( I should have been a lawyer) and added that we could make them inoperative to live ammo.

"No.":mad:

I had to spend an "abused childhood" playing with fake guns and wooden guns while wearing Army/Marine surplus gear....at least I was attired authentic!!:D
 
I was about 5 when a uncle came back from the war. He had about 5 various liberated pistols he set on the floor. A luger, radom, P-38, and a browning .32. All had the holsters and mags. Dad told me to pick one out. For some reason I picked out the radom. Dad traced it on a board, sawed it out and doctored it up to look fairly realistic. If it wasnt my first toy gun, it was close to it. I recall takeing it to school and showing it off. A older classmate heard me and told me to go show the teacher my "pisso" as I called it.
 
I don't remember the brand name of these toy pistols, but they would shoot plastic darts with suction cup tips. This was in the fifties when cowboys were the big thing on TV. I would stand in front of Mom's big round vanity mirror and quick draw against my reflection. It seemed like a great idea. Mom didn't agree. Every time a dart would hit the mirror it knocked the silver off the back. The center of her mirror was covered in round black circles.
 
The VERY FIRST holster I ever got paid for making.....was for a Polish Radom. The NYPD cop brought it back from a long walk in Europe. It was an Inside Waistband model that Chic Gaylord originally designed for the 1911/1911-A1 Colt. It was the sweetest $12.00 I ever earned, 40+ years ago or more! A movie, a really pretty little girl and gas in the tank.....I was hooked!

Cheers;
Lefty
 
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phs3194 said:
I don't remember the brand name of these toy pistols, but they would shoot plastic darts with suction cup tips. This was in the fifties when cowboys were the big thing on TV. I would stand in front of Mom's big round vanity mirror and quick draw against my reflection. It seemed like a great idea. Mom didn't agree. Every time a dart would hit the mirror it knocked the silver off the back. The center of her mirror was covered in round black circles.
Click to expand...

I had those...I also had the single action Colts that had a cap and fired a little grey plastic bullet...the bullets had litrle flanges on them and you could snap them back into the cases...
 
Mattel Shootin' Shell, if I remember correctly! Had the little circular caps that stuck on the end of the cartridges.
 
Like these?
capguns001-1.jpg
 
During the 50's I did not consider myself properly dressed for play without at least one toy sidearm or rifle. As I recall most were Hubley's.
The single and double barreled pirate pistols with the redish brown plastic grips. You had to tear caps off the roll and insert them in the "pan".

There were other Hubley's that resembled a semi auto. They took an entire roll of caps in a pop up magizine. There was a little lever in front of the trigger guard that allowed the magizine to pop up out of the back portion of the slide.

My last Hubley was a beautiful 1860 Colt Army. Chrome with a golden cylinder. It actually could be loaded with dummy 2 part cartridges that you could insert a round cap into. Those were the days.

I also had a brace of Matel Fanner 50's with holsters. I never wanted to be under gunned in the woods behind the school.

Long arms consisted of a "Trainer Rifle". Wooden stock, bolt action, metal barrel at the front and a rubber bayonet. Sort of modeled on an '03 Springfield. This got a lot of use as I was doing my best to wear out Dad's WWII army uniforms. Also in the armory was a plastic battery powered sub-machine gun of some unknown design. When you pulled the trigger it had a motor that would make a machine gun sound and shoot sparks out of the muzzle. One other was a Daisy air rifle, not to be confused with a Daisy BB gun. Mom was of the old you'll shoot you eye out school of thought.

All the above mentioned items still reside buried in the dark unreachable recess's of our attic. I never could bring myself to part with any of them.

LTC
 
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Mine are long gone, alas. However, they planted some suggestions in my psyche. One of my favorites was a Hubley Trooper. My first revolved was-a Colt Trooper.
 
Can you imagine just trying to sell cap guns, much less the "Mattel Shootin' Shell" in today's PC toy market??

Mattel had a set with the two sixguns and a square metal buckle that had a "copy" of the Colt single barrel derringer in it that would pop out so you could grab it and shoot one shot.

Mattel also made a rather accurate plastic copy of the Thompson M1928A1. I had one.

I also had the same "trainer" rifle as mentioned above. But the plastic bayonet was not the "proper" M1905 long blade WWI/earlyWWII verison but a late M1 Garand version with a short blade. I was so ticked off I made my own out of tin and wood and held it together with masking tape.

I would remove the bolt and the trainer became an M1 Garand. With the bolt in I was with the Marines at Belleau Wood!!:D
 
Toy guns - Nerf type dart shooters, battery operated, clicker, and cap - are all still readily available. Most any Walmart or Target will have a veritable arsenal of the Nerf and Buzzbee guns. Some of them eject a spent plastic shell casing (reloadable) after sending their foam dart downrange. A different company now sells guns that shoot water balls, not sure how they work, but the advertising stresses longer range and holding more ammo. Still other companies make "laser tag" type gun sets, that us IR signals to tell you when you're "hit".

Dollar General probably has the best supply though, alongside Kmart. Kmart provided a toy 50 caliber complete with ammo belt. It makes a charging noise when you charge the handle, the ammo feeds, and you can swivel it on the tripod. DolGen meanwhile recently yielded a very realistic M4 carbine toy. It was in Desert digital camo, cam with toy Surefire VFG and a toy Aimpoint, as well a suppressor. When you put the suppressor on it changes the noise the gun makes from a "brat brat brat" to more of "phht". A companion Beretta M9 is sold seperately. Pull back the charging handle on the M4 and it makes a loading noise. Pull back the slide on the Beretta and you get the same. Put the silencer (included) on the Beretta and it alters the sound of it as well. Both are pretty close to 1:1 scale. (The M4 albeit would be one of the shorty variants.) The M4 even has a working flip up front sight and working collapsible stock.

Those are actually better than the toy guns that I had as a kid in the 1980s...

Here is a photo of the older boy circa last Christmas with his new 50 still in the box...
machinegun.jpg


Some kid reviews the M4 toy here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTdLXNQxp0
 
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Takes me back. Just before the war I had a friend about 1/2 mile down the road. I had a better cap pistol than he did, but he had an absolutely awesome comic book collection! Both, particularly the comic book collection, would be worth real money today.
 
Woolworths, or the old 5 & 10 was pretty much the local "armory" for our gang of young troopers. They offered nearly everything a boy could want from toy soldiers to tanks. Many of the toy guns mentioned in this thread were sold by them.....and boy did we buy them.

And you had to have the correct wardrobe accessories, of course. Directly across from our local 5&10, there was a large Army-Navy surplus store. It was a wonderland for us kids. I think every one of us had a web pistol belt and holster, a G.I. helmet liner and a G.I. rucksack. We defeated the entire German and Imperial Japnese army every Saturday. We would have defeated the Italian's also, but we didn't know they had an army at all.

Cowboy play was not popular amongst our gang, we all thought perhaps, that was a regional thing and didn't work in our imaginary theater of operations in New York City. But....in front of the TV set, that was a different story entirely. All the westerns of the 50's and 60's, many of them made well before that (the list would be endless) provoked the imagery of being the "good guy" and alway's saving the ranch and doing the "right thing". How in the world anyone could suggest those ideals were a bad influence is beyond my understanding. Anyway, when the cowboys were on, so was my cowboy hat and a cap gun.....and my poor youngest brother was ALWAYS the bad guy, horse thief, cattle rustler, train robber, kidnapper, etc. Hell it was all good fun!

Cheers;
Lefty
 
I had several aunts that worked for Kilgore so that is the brand I was armed with. Only have a couple left as most were used up and caps were corrosive.
 
I bought a cap pistol with the first $5.00 I made picking veggies/fruit at a local farm. It got lost or thrown away a very long time ago.

I would take rolls of caps and put them on the driveway, and then hit them with a hammer. Lots of noise, concussion, and fun.:D No wonder my hearing ain't right now, at least according to my wife.:rolleyes:
 
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