Blowing Smoke

I found this toy muzzleloader pistol at a sale a while back.  I bought one just like it from K-Mart when I was about 9 years old.  This was at the height of Bicentennial-mania when everything olde tymey was in style.  My dad had taken up black powder hunting and so I had a fascination with the toy version.  I was surprised to find this in it's original cardboard packaging.

"Shoots Caps and Cork Balls".   This was a big selling point with me.  I had visions of firing these cork balls from my pistol striking anything (or anyone) in my path.  The sad truth was they did absolutely nothing.  While the addition of  cap made for an impressive bang and a cloud of smoke, the only way the cork balls would come out of the barrel was if you tilted it downward.

Purchased 6/24/75.  I guess that was the original buyer's note since it was "guaranteed one year". 

Parris Manufacturing of Savannah, Georgia started out in 1936 as a manufacturer of wind-powered generators.  When that didn't pan out, they began making dummy rifles for the U.S. Army and Navy for training purposes during World War II.  After the war, the moved into toy gun manufacturing and continue to today.