Jolly Seven Again!

 I love seeing clones of the Fireball XL5/ Johnny Seven toy rifles, what I call Jolly Sevens after the Japanese version.

Here's another I saw on auction: The Automatic Machine Gun. Not sure of the make.

It's got many of the features of other incarnations of this type: the long pierced barrel, the wedged stock, the big round finder.

Do you know of any more like this?

For a look at others I've found check the labels below.

One Man Custom: My Home-Made Johnny Seven

Since childhood and my parents giving me a Johnny Seven one Christmas I've always loved this classic Topper toy rifle.

Like all my old toys I guess it went to Preston's landfill back in the mid-Seventies.

Remembering how much I loved it, in 2000 I bought myself a boxed Johnny Seven at the NEC's Memorabilia show. It was from an affable young dealer called Ian and cost £300, the most I've ever spent on a collectable.

It's tucked safely away in the attic.

 I do occasionally get it out on maneuvers!

I restored another Johnny Seven in 2007 for re-sale, replacing some missing parts with original and repro replacements.

I blogged about it some years back, the post comments becoming a sort of talking shop for J7 restorers! 

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2018/04/rebuilding-johnny-seven-one-man-army.html?m=1

And so to the present. Having finished my Secret Sam rifle recently I was looking for something else to make, when I came across a bunch of old Nerf guns at the Thorpe Arch boot sale. Bingo! £4 later I had my raw materials for making a ........

..... Johnny Seven! 

With a good dose of bits from my bits box and a pair of plastic shoe horns the toy began to take shape.

A couple of home-made missiles completed the look.

Dipping my toe into paint spraying for the first time, I took my mock-off in the garden ......

... And primed it red.

I made a whole armoury of missiles!

And here's Johnny! 

The One Man Army made in the kitchen! 

Hope you like it.

You can see it's a similar size to the original.

Phew! Boy, was it fiddly but lots of Topper fun! 

*

Next up, Redbox Secret Agent.

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?