1960's War Toys

[Dirk]

Before the anti-war movement really took off at the end of the 1960s, toy sections of department stores as well as local toy stores were filled with all kinds of military themed toys.....every boy in my neighborhood had at least one gun, large numbers of "green army men", and or GI Joe's...and of course kids had plastic helmets, plastic web gear and canteens (and at least one or two might have augmented their kits with things their dad's brought home following WWII......As such we couldn't wait until the new Sears Wish Book would come out at Christmas so we could see what new military hardware was available....or take that trip to the big city department store to see that tri-pod mounted machine gun or examine a Johnny Seven up close......as I clean out my old childhood home I thought it might be fun to show some of the things we played with in hopes others of that period might remember their "battlefields" before they were covered by urban sprawl and kids no longer walked the neighborhood "armed to the teeth" in hope of ambushing Rommel's men or stopping that Banzai charge...

 

First up is a GI Joe sized model of an F-9 Panther....these were made by Irvin for GI Joe and sold for $5.79 (Sears Catalog 1966) I got mine that year and loved it because my uncle actually flew this type of plane in the 1950's.....in fact my Navy Pilot Joe looked just as stern as my uncle did in person.

[Dirk]

Next is a GI Joe Motor Cycle with side car....both this and the Jet have been reproduced since that time...but these are the originals....the kid down the street got this the same year as me as well as the jet, helicopter, staff car and jeep with recoilless rifle ....in fact he got every GI Joe item in that Sears catalog...including the Action Soldiers of the World collection....yeah I was jealous.

[Dirk]

These sold for $3.79 at the time

[Dirk]

You just don't see kids today going to school with these types of lunch boxes do you?

[Dirk]

The front side of the lunch box....These came with a glass lined thermos that as you can guess, broke...rather quickly......

[Sabrejet]

Unfortunately (or fortunately...depending upon which way you look at it!) so-called "Political-Correctness" has decimated the "war toy" market which we baby-boomers enjoyed as kids. However, rather peversely, although GI Joes and Johnny Sevens have fallen from grace, much more graphic virtual war games such as "Call of Duty" have replaced them. Go figure! :dunno:

[Dirk]

Tiger Joe.....was a large tank that was sold only in super markets (Don't ask me why) and our local A&P had them on a shelf above the meat counter...in fact at Christmas the store would put its new toys along that shelf...which must have been hell for parents with small kids....Tiger Joe moved via a wire connected "Walkie Talkie" and fired real rubber shells...I've still got the shells....and if I remember correctly they were filled with a white powder that got on everything you hit...but made a cool puff of "smoke" when you hit say, your parents crystal cabinet .

[Dirk]

Another view of this plastic beast....

[Bluehawk]

I had about 200 of these guys, but a decade before Vietnam.

[Dirk]

Originally I was "issued" a camo painted Thompson sub machine gun with a green canvas strap.....but after a number of hard years of "campaigning" it fell apart....so my father took me to a big city department store to select a new weapon.....I was tempted by the tripod mounted machine gun (a mock up of a 50 cal weapon...so saith Sears) but felt it would restrict me to a static defensive position so I opted for another Thompson instead....I must admit I liked my older one better but they stopped making it by then. These were, like most guns...cap firing....yes I had the M-14 Johnny Eagle later but broke the barrel on my first day out with it!

[willysmb44]

Being born in 1969, I kinda got hosed early on. 'Nam killed the war toy market during my early youth, and it didn't come back until I was almost a teen. When I was about 10, I guess, I got a neat machine gun for Christmas (yeah, I know, irony at work). It was a hybrid .30-.50 cal, in green plastic with a black tripod. It had an electric trigger on the spade grips and was battery powered. It make a MG sound, a red plug came in and out of the barrel like a muzzle flash and a plastic cartridge (with the bullet still seated, that drove me nuts) was motorized popping in and out of the ejector port to feel like a stream of brass coming out from firing. It went to the toy graveyard at some point but not because I broke it, I treated that thing quite well considering all the 'battles' I fought in my backyard with the thing. I always wondered who made it because I've never seen one anywhere else.

[Dirk]

Could this be close to the "rosebud" your looking for? The one I saw in the Department store seemed much larger but of course I was much smaller then.

[willysmb44]

Could this be close to the "rosebud" your looking for? The one I saw in the Department store seemed much larger but of course I was much smaller then.

Close, but not quite. Mine was by itself and reasonably well-made. I'd think it would have been around 1980 or so... Mom made us pose with our holiday presents, I need to break out the photo album because I probably have a photo of it somewhere or Mom has one...

[Dirk]

Of course everyone had army men...and a afternoon of of army men around a dirt pile was a respectable past time for pre-teen boys....these tanks came from the Auburn Company and the Marx company (the front tank) ....go to any five and dime and they would have tons of these piled in glass divided counters...colors might vary from store to store or year to year but everyone in the neighborhood seemed to have these.

[p2tharizo]

Dirk, thank you for sharing. You're lucky to still have those items to go along with the great memories. Very neat.

[Dirk]

And of course one needs a half track...jeep towing a light artillery piece, a deuce and a half and ambulance...I believe the ambulance dates from the 1950's and came to me second hand from the "older kids" as they out grew these.....the other vehicles are Auburn made toys....

[Dirk]

Dime store airpower......again a trip to the five and dime always had tons of these in counters low enough for a five year old to get at them....the figures are by Marx.

[Dirk]

Green army men.....it is amazing over the years how a number of these figures were copied by various manufacturers (before they all went to China) and seemed to be reissued to kids well after the 60's...yes they may have gotten smaller and less detailed but by and large they were the same figures....these are some of the first I got a as a very young kid....

[Jack's Son]

I had the model that didn't have the remote. But it did fire grayish projectiles that were in brass jackets. it was the best toy!!

[Dirk]

Last one of this series....although I might post a few pages from the 1966 Wish Book a bit later.....these are made by various manufacturers but I think the most popular maker was the Marx Company.....they had many different historical play sets of all periods and I desperately wanted one.....sadly by the time my parents got the hint I was serious, the images of the Vietnam War and a number of assassinations in 1968 rapidly shut down the war toy business....almost overnight these types of toys left the store shelves...GI Joe grew a beard, developed a kung fu grip and went "Adventure" and although the Marx company hung on to 1975 or so, when their play sets briefly returned to the Sears catalog I had long outgrown the hobby and began collecting militaria and antique Britains LTD figures made before WWII.....

[Manchu Warrior]

Here are a few of mine. I have the Empire M16 and the other three cap guns were made by Mattel. I am not sure how rare the shot gun is but I cannot find any information about a Mattel shot gun cap gun on line and I have never seen one for sale on ebay. And of course what could you do with all the guns if you didn't have communication with the Johnny Seven Combat Phone Set.

[Manchu Warrior]

more photos

[Manchu Warrior]

phone set.

[Dirk]

That was the Thompson I was referring too! Both of those weapons look in great shape even now!

[rr01]

I remember Auburn stuff very well. They made the cool motorcycle police set and the atomic railroad engine all in indstructable rubber. There are probably rubber soldiers buried by the millions in old backyard battlefields {sandboxes}.

There was a plastic battery powered .50 that made a realistic sound and the muzzle recoiled.

Then there was the Thompson .45 with the removable stock, foregrip....well you could actually take it all the way down to a pistol.

I had a battery powered H~21 with the usual wired remote that contained the battery to power the rotors and the cog that moved the wheels; the same as my first DC~7. The door slid open and I could get the rubber soldiers inside but since it only drove around it was only good on concrete. It tipped over too easily on the real battlefront.

Yep, post WWII was a dangerous time to be a kid.