There were cap pistols in the early 60s, but we didn't see those often. They malfunctioned too easily and had to be replaced, so only rich kids from other neighborhoods had those. We just had the paper tape, which you hit with a hammer, or more likely just a rock. Some kids thought these were amazingly exciting, hearing the little explosion. My friends and I weren't so interested. We might bang out a dozen of them once in a while. You couldn't bring them to school. Big trouble for that.
I can still smell them.
4 comments:
I guess I was one of the rich kids, though my brother and I did pretty quickly shift to smacking a stack of caps with hammer as well. Certainly startled the chickens.
Misfires were frequent enough that you could beg a used strip from a "rich kid" (or one whose mother wasn't opposed to toy guns) and find enough duds to hammer to make the effort worthwhile.
Maybe Yankees don't know how to build cap guns. We had them as a dependable feature of childhood, and I can't recall one breaking.
More likely, since you and I are a few years apart, the technology of the cap gun improved a bit. Yankees, if I'm honest about it, used to be at the top of the gun-making business. It's only lately that everything's been moving south.
My stepfather was from North Haven CT, and his father was a specialised tool-maker at the Winchester factory.
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