To me, the ad triggered (no pun intended) thoughts of a simpler time, when kids could live out their western gun fantasies without causing fear and panic throughout their neighborhood.
On that post, I remarked how my brothers and I all had toy guns as kids, and that there were photos of my older brother Ken and me from the late 1950s/early 60s posing with our toy six shooters.
Well, I dug up the photos. They're from Christmas 1960, which means that Ken was a few days away from being three years old, and I was a couple months short of two years old. Here’s a ’split screen’ photo of us. I love the look of unbridled glee on Ken’s face.
Although I’m not wearing a holster (maybe I was going to tuck my pistols in my cuffs), I did get one for Christmas along with my guns. It was visible in the uncropped photo of Ken. The holster was sitting in its open box on the coffee table to the left of him. You can clearly see the name Hubley on it.
The box lid looked like this.
Toy guns were big business back then. Hubley produced entire catalogs of guns and holster sets. Here’s a cover and page from two catalogs.
Anyway, it was a different time that’s for sure.
Just for fun, I took a look at the collection of Harry Volk clip art from the 1950s where I work, in the Art Department of a Cleveland printing company. Sure enough, there were plenty of illustrations showing pistol-packing preteens.
Here are a few of those stock illustrations.
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| 1955 |
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| 1956 |
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| 1956 |
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| 1958 |
I guess that means that Ken and I were just your average, well-armed American kids.
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UPDATE (Oct. 4, 2019)I received an email yesterday from a regular reader, who is about my age, who has contributed some great content to the blog over the last few years. Attached was photo (below) of himself as a rootin' tootin' toddler, with cowboy hat, boots, guns, holster – and diaper! "Got you beat!" was his comment. I think he does!
