Santa’s best present was a cap gun
By Tom Gillespie
HOW many of our readers will remember what a toy cap gun looked like?
It must be 65 years since I first got one from Santa on Christmas morning in 1956. It was the must-have toy of its day for every young boy who played Cowboys and Indians.
The aptly named ‘Pony Boy’ was a six-gun or rifle into which you inserted a roll of caps that created a loud sound like a gunshot and a puff of smoke when the small percussion cap was exploded.
Cap guns were originally made of cast iron, but after World War II were made of zinc alloy, and most newer models are made of plastic.
To complete the outfit the cap gun had to be accompanied by a belt and holster, like in which the gun-slingers in the Westerns carried their revolvers, as well as a cowboy suit.
The cap gun could be ‘broken’, as in the photo, so the roll of caps could be inserted and wound out so that when the trigger was pulled the hammer would explode the cap, and the next cap was pulled forward.
It was important, too, that you had a good supply of caps. They came in a pack of 12 rolls and the boy with a sufficient supply was always sure of a game of Cowboys and Indians, as was the youngster with a football, a game of football.
I can still get the distinct smell of the exploded caps which hung in the air long after the trigger was pulled.
There were standard cap guns which I had, and then there were the more decorative ones which we would be goggle-eyed looking at in both of the Wynne’s toy shops on either side of Main Street in Castlebar in the weeks before Christmas.
Cap guns became especially popular when the heroes of cinema rode through the West, ridding the territories of villains. Many cap guns were named after or endorsed by leading matinee idols like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Tonto, Dale Evans and Marshal Matt Dillon, or any of countless others.
The golden age of cap guns was roughly a 20-year period following World War II when television became popular in the US and Britain. We had to wait until RTÉ Television came on air in December 1951 before we could watch ‘Have Gun Will Travel’ or ‘Annie Oakley’.
While many of the cap guns had their names patterned after a hero or heroine, many others were also named with western-sounding names, like ‘Stallion 45', ‘Mustang’, ‘Pioneer’, ‘Cowboy’, ‘Texan’, ‘Colt 45', ‘Rodeo', and such like.
Children all over the world emulated their heroes by collecting and playing with these toy guns. However, when the Western television shows began to fade away and the heroes retired, the cap gun continued to be produced in military and secret agent modes until the popularity of the tie-in toy guns also diminished, and eventually all of the famous cap gun manufacturers either sold out to other toy companies or started manufacturing other types of toys.
There were many types of cap guns, including guns from small Derringers to larger rifles, and even working miniatures of most of them.
One of the last famous ones to sell widely was a toy rifle named after the television show The Rifleman, which aired from 1958 through early 1963. Other shows lasted longer, such as Gunsmoke (which had 20 seasons, lasting through to 1975).
The pistols were generally offered in three styles: the semi-automatic, the revolver (which actually had a revolving cylinder carrying a disk of caps), and the mock-revolver which looked like a regular revolver, but opened to load a roll of caps.
The more adventurous cap gun owner was often dared to throw a full roll of caps into an open fire with the resulting string of explosions.
But to play Cowboys and Indians we had, of course, to have Indians. Indian outfits, complete with head feathers and bow and arrow, were not as popular at the cowboy suits, as everyone wanted to be a cowboy because the Indians were always killed.
The toy bow and arrow sets were never too sturdy so we resorted to making our own. A walk to ‘The Rocks’ - at the rear of where the Rockvale housing estate now stands - meant you had a choice of the finest hazel rods. Add in a length of fine fishing line and you had your bow. Sally rod arrows completed the package. The only simple tool we needed to make a bow and arrow was a small pocket penknife.
If a Western was shown in the County Cinema at the Sunday matinee you can be sure it was be enacted by us for several days.
Some of the more talented youngsters were able to add feather flights to make the arrow more authentic. The feathers were easily come by as most families reared chickens.
At Christmas time along Marian Row, where we lived in Castlebar, most families raised their own turkey and it was not uncommon to see the turkey wing feathers being used to decorate the Indian outfit, while the discarded turkey feet were added as Indian amulets.
Baynes’ Hill - now Glenfort - was our playground. It was full of hiding places where we spent most days in the summer outdoors where we built secret huts and in winter, when snow fell, it was an ideal toboggan slope, though it was advisable to avoid the ‘sand pit’ on the way down.