WILL'S JOHNNY SEVEN MICROHELMET PHONE SET

Hi Woodsy, You would have loved this back in the day to go with your Johnny 7 gun! The helmet set! Works up to one mile! (with additional wire!) . 

Yeah, right! 

Will O

UK

Did anyone have one?

WILL'S JOHNNY SEVEN SPEED CAR AND BOAT SET

 My Topper Johnny Seven Speed Set.

Will O, UK.

WILL'S JOHNNY EAGLES

Hi Woodsy. 

On the blog a few days ago there were some catalogue pages with some toy guns. 

Here are some of my Johnny Eagle weapons by Deluxe Reading, Topper.

Will O

UK

Have you anything like this readers?

Any Johnny toys?

Bloggiversary Finale: Then and the Art of War: Sea Power

There have been a number of posts recently about ships and boats, but the definitive boat toys for me have to be the Deluxe Reading or Topper Toys range. Topper were responsible for the Johnny Seven gun, the Tiger Joe Tank, Johnny Astro and Johnny Speed toys, but also the wonderful Cape Canaveral Rocket Base and Armoured Battalion sets. All the toys were big, substantial and made to appeal to boys! All the space and army toys bristle with cannons, rockets and missiles and almost all of them launch or fire in some way. The Task Force set is no exception and the stand alone destroyer toy, the U.S.S Battlewagon was the ultimate in boat toys.

 

The Battlewagon is a huge toy, a good three feet of battery powered plastic, which rolled along on wheels, blasting off rockets, planes, shells and torpedoes. You can see it in action on this You Tube link:

https://youtu.be/_7KnQSWB7cw?feature=shared

The downside of this amazing toy is that it is a horror to try and photograph, as it’s massive! You can see it below in my fully featured studio, complete with microwave, that it takes up all the worktop!

But just as the Topper adverts proudly proclaim, “You get all this!” A bank of firing cannons on the front deck, torpedo launchers, jet catapult and anti-aircraft missiles to the stern.

The missiles on the back are the same ‘Nike Hercules’ type that come with the Cape Canaveral Missile bank, discriminated by red nose cones, rather than black.

I was really lucky to find all three ships in a loose lot many years ago on eBay, with almost all the accessories included. I have never tried to start up the Battlewagon, as it takes the really hefty C cell batteries, but all the wiring looks intact. The Anson signal light was missing along with the battery cover, too.

Next we have the Task Force, which consists of a destroyer, motor patrol boat and a target float.

The Destroyer was in good shape overall, even coming with original shells and depth charges. However, the little landing craft was missing, so I had to build one out of an old Aurora ‘Anzio Beach’ model.

The Destroyer has launching depth charges at rear and a large turret on the front, along with a crane to hold the landing craft. All models come with a full crew of figures, each about 1/55 scale, around an inch or so high.

The Patrol Boat has a large red missile on the front and two gun turrets. This was missing part of the central mast, but was otherwise in good order.

Earlier last month, I spotted a pair of Topper boats on eBay, both looking a little weather beaten and forlorn, so I grabbed them and took them home to the shipyards!

As the destroyer was missing quite a bit of the main bodywork, I fashioned a new cabin arrangement and funnel, then replaced the landing craft bay with a new crane and a mini-sub pen. An old Action Man Anson lamp formed a searchlight on the rear. The sub comes direct from Bluebird Zero Hour, which is just a slightly smaller scale at around 1/65.

The patrol boat was again, a bit of a blank canvas, as a lot of the surface detail had gone. I was able to attach a large torpedo bay from an old army playset and reposition the frigates depth charge launcher on the front. Zero Hour accessories in the form of oil tanks made excellent cannisters and some of the small boxes and other parts were used as detail.

The torpedoes were mounted on the sides in classic patrol boat style, but can only be launched from the rear. A few spare radar arrays and aerials completed the outfitting of both vessels and my daughter kindly fashioned some new vinyl decals for both ships, including a new Submarine Hunter designation for the destroyer.

The second boat had slightly different colours too, which made it easier to give it the look of a different model.

And of course, what’s the use of having all these submarine warfare vessels on hand if there’s no enemy vessels to hunt? So I took another playset toy, in the form of a submarine and used that as the quarry!

THE SPANISH JOHNNY JOLLY SEVEN: AGENTE ESPACIAL 009

As you'd expect, I love this big toy rifle from Spain released in 1968.

Its got those 007 Jolly Seven chops with a Johnny Seven vibe throughout, just my cup of cha!

It was manufactured by Spanish toy giants Jyesa and came in this marvellous box.

Baddies didn't stand a chance!

The rifle came with a detachable pistol and had sound and light effects.

It took three big batteries up the butt. You can see the Jyesa round logo here too, JYE.

It wpould have been spectacular on the shelves of Spain's toyshops in 1968 and featured in catalogues of the day like this page here, where it's shown top left.

Interestingly its very similar of not the same toy as the Leizer 2000 from Greece we've seen before.

See also my history of the Fireball XL5 rifle for another perspective of this toy gun [click on the label below].

What do you think readers?

THE GREEK JOHNNY SEVEN

I've written about these before but I'm always amazed when they turn up on Ebay, the Greek Leizer 200 made by Alpha.

Its clearly a Greek knockoff of the much more famous Johnny Seven by Topper, but still its got some style of its own.

The red pistol at the front detaches too.

It would look the part in a Johnny Seven toy collection or even a Fireball XL5 toy rifle collection!

What do you think?

JOHNNY HEAVEN?

 I'm torn about military toys these days but as a kid in the Sixties I was as gung-ho as the next young sapper. 

My inner-child is still drawn towards any toys that remind me of those glory days doing battle with my friends with our plastic bazookas, mortars, grenades and Johnny Sevens. We were war-like baby boomers and that's the way it was.

I still have a Johnny Seven like I had back in 1965 or 6.

Its the most expensive vintage toy I've ever bought as a collector. It was in the dying moments of an NEC memorabilia fair circa year 2000 and having seen it earlier in the day I found myself back in front of the seller, a kindly young Yorkshire chap from Snape I think, asking that classic punter's question: what's your best price mate?

£300 later I walked off with a minty boxed One Man Army! I mean, just look at the old TV ad and you'll see why!

Did you have a Johnny Seven or any army toys?

So when I saw the Dorset Tank Museum Shop's online plastic arsenal I couldn't help enjoy a frisson of that old guilty pleasure recalling past bubblegum skirmishes in the back garden, where we just counted to ten if we were shot.

The Tank Museum offers cost a lot lot less and here's the best of the bunch. What do you think?

I had a mortar like this back then. Oh what fun we had.

This Bazooka looks terrific I have to say. In '67 we would have stormed the sandpit bunker to get it! There's been lots of bazookas over the years, many using ping pong balls, including a rare Dr. Who version we've covered before on MC. Did you have one of those?

The symbol of a Sixties childhood, the plastic GI helmet.

and maybe the best till last, this toy missile gun recalls my Johnny Seven's green massive anti-tank shell. With plastic ammo like that our frenemy opposition, hiding behind their deck chair barricades, would have surrendered before they could say Sekiden.

See anything you like in that Tank Museum shop?

Are you torn about military toys nowadays? Would you buy them for your kids/ grandkids for Christmas?

WILL'S THUNDER SEVEN

Hi. Seeing your recent post about the probable Johnny Tarheel gun, it reminded me of this Japanese Johnny Seven ripoff by Matsushiro. 

Have you anything like this?

Regards. 

Will O.

WOTAN STOLE MY JOHNNY SEVEN!

 When he was 8 Wotan stole my Johnny Seven.

He still has it now aged 89!

Give it back Wotan or else its war!

Now where's my Sekiden?

Doh!

THE HUNTSMAN TOY RIFLE

Before the virus I was in a B&M store looking for Easter gifts for the kids. I couldn't help noticing a large selection of plastic toy guns and the biggest of all was this, the Huntsman, which I think is by Lanard.

When I was a nipper, like many others, we had the biggest toy weapon of all time, Topper's Johnny seven One Man Army. I still have one. My parents obviously bought it me one Christmas and I think it was the biggest selling toy that year.

I often wonder if they had any qualms about buying me, a 7 year old, such a huge toy gun? My folks both fought in the War and might very well have had their fill of guns and ammo, so did they hesitate when faced with Johnny Seven in the shop or did peer pressure prevail?

I ask because I'm just not sure I'd buy my Grandson, Moonbase Junior, the Huntsman. OK, he's only 3 and a half at the mo but even if he was 7, I'm just not sure nowadays.

I'd have fun with it though but I wouldn't take it in the street like we did with our Johnny Sevens!

What would you do?

Above: Wotan playing with MY One Man Army!

Transcontinental Bus, Military Cricket, Secret Sam and Johnny Seven Type Toys Spain 1968-69

A few more pages of interest from Spanish toy catalogues I've seen online.

All dated between 1968 and 1969

Here we have among many gems the Transcontinental Bus - bottom left - as used by Derek Meddings and co in Gerry Anderson's TV shows.

This interested me as it shows Spanish versions of both the Secret Sam rifle, unboxed, which many of us had inside an attache case and never loose like this.

Also the Lanza rifle toy appears to have the same three missiles as Topper's Johnny Seven rifle!

Moving on here we have the military Cricket-type vehicle we've featured many times. Its the one below the plastic out-house.

Nice to see it unboxed and among other cool toys of the sixties.

And once more for good measure, here's the military cricket on the back page of another catalogue.

Have you got any of these toys readers readers? Any version from anywhere?