Gun Play: Actoy Buntline Special & Leslie Henry Autry

I haven't flashed any weapons at you for awhile, so here's a double dose. This "Buntline Special" from Actoy is a far cry from the gun I saw Hugh O'Brien toting around every week, but it's the best of a poor lot from the toy manufacturers. Hubley did one called just "Wyatt Earp" with a longer than normal barrel, but it was made for a small hand and looked altogether puny. Someone made a larger version entirely of black plastic, but all-plastic guns had no appeal to me.

The Leslie Henry company made Gene Autry pistols in three sizes, of which this is the smallest. Still, the detailing is nice, and the feel is solid. The Cadillac of the Gene Autry line was featured here some time back (click the "Cap guns" label below to see it and others). The standard model will be coming your way soon.

Gun Play: Marx Cavalry Pistol

This Marx Miniature Firearm (about 4 inches long) was marketed as both a Civil War Pistol and a Cavalry Pistol. It sometimes came strapped to a card, sometimes in a plastic box with caps, and sometimes on a bubble-wrap card with a Sharp's carbine (coming soon to your local Almanack). It was part of the same set as the Marx Six Shooter. This is one I really wish they'd made as a full-size cap gun.

Gun Play: Actoy Lone Ranger

Somehow I just can't see Clayton Moore shootin' silver bullets out of this one. But it does have "Lone Ranger" stamped on the side, making it more desirable than the average cap gun. The standard bearer of the Actoy line was the "Pony Boy" model (which looked just like this except with a silver finish), hence the pony head logo on the grip. Click to enlarge, if you're so inclined.

Gun Play: Gene Autry .44

There were several models of Gene Autry cap guns, and there may be one or two I'm not familiar with. But this Leslie-Henry .44 is hands-down the best Autry gun I've ever seen. It's 11 inches of finely detailed pot metal, with a revolving cylinder, pop-down cap-loading plate and unique horse head plastic grips. Seems to me I coughed up $125 for this one, the most I ever paid for a cap gun, and that was 15 years ago. Once I wrapped my paw around it, I couldn't let go.

Almost Bat Masterson.

When I wasn't busy being Davy Crockett, sometimes I was Roy Rogers and sometimes Bat Masterson. Here are the various pieces of my Bat outfit. The hat (not quite derbyish but not quite cowboy), the cane (sorry, no hidden knife or sword), and the gentlemanly pistol (a Hubley Remington .36). Thus equipped, all I had to do was hum the theme song and I was a 1/2 scale neighborhood version of Gene Barry. If only I'd had the vest. James Reasoner models both hat and vest over at Rough Edges.

Gun Play: Hubley Ric-O-Shay

Hubley made more cap guns than anybody, and this is one of my favorites because it's BIG. This baby is even bigger than a real-life Peacemaker. And as the box says, when you pull the trigger you hear the whine of the bullet. See that price written on the box? $3.98. Yikes! Gotta get me a time machine so I can go shopping in the fifties.

Gun Play: Marx Six Shooter

Looks authentic, don't it? But it's really a cap gun, and less than four inches long to boot. Marx marketed their line of Miniature Firearms in various ways. You might find them strapped to a card, in a plastic box with the name of the gun engraved on top, or in a set with other guns. The set this came in includes a detective .38 and a tommy-gun, in addition to other Old West weapons. The Six Shooter breaks open like a real gun for loading caps, and you fire by pulling back the hammer. For some reason Marx made relatively few full-size cap guns, and nearly all of those were lightweight plastic with metal triggers and hammers. Part of the joy of toting a cap gun was feeling the weight of metal on your hip--and in your hand, so Marx missed the boat on that. On the other hand, these miniatures were cool because you could sneak them into school.

Gun Play: Wyandotte Hopalong Cassidy

Didn't have one of these as a kid. Maybe that's because Hoppy wasn't my favorite TV cowboy. With his white hair and mature, sensible attitude, he seemed more like a friendly grandfather than a western hero. So given a choice, I was usually watching The Lone Ranger or The Roy Rogers Show instead. Now, having seen many of the early Hopalong Cassidy films, I see what all the fuss was about. There are two of these Wyandotte (see the Y & . brand on the grip?) Hoppys in my arsenal. This one is a real cap gun, while the other is a "non-firing" version. Apparently some states had goofy laws against caps, so some manufacturers catered to them with a wimpy hammer that would not strike a cap.

Gun Play: Kilgore Roy Rogers

Many companies offered Roy Rogers cap guns, most are really expensive now. These Kilgores are a bit more common than most, and I'd put them in the moderately expensive category. In mint, unfired (meaning no cap residue) condition, as these are, I'd say the larger one might bring about $100 and the other slightly less. Beats me why no one ever made a Roy Rogers cap gun that resembled the gun Roy himself usually carried a silver-plated Peacemaker. The closest thing to it was the Fanner 50, featured a few days back.

Gun Play: Mattel Fanner 50

I had a lot of cap guns when I was a little kid. And now that I'm a big kid I have a lot more than that. But the number one choice for my holster has always been the classic Mattel Fanner 50. Introduced in 1957, the Fanner remained the anchor of the Mattel cap gun line well into the late sixties. The early Fanners, like these, had a realistic nickel finish. Several variations in finish, grips, size and function were introduced over the years. We'll take a look at many of them, and other nonlethal weapons from my armory, as the Almanack rolls merrily along.