"Cereal box" rifle?

[Hammer059]

Stopped at the gun shop down the street from me yesterday and they had a used single-shot bolt .22 rifle made by Hogan that was obviously an antique from first glance.

One of the employees saw me looking at it and then explained it was a "cereal box gun" and the guy that traded it in had got it a long time ago from a cereal box ad, just like you would send in a bunch of coupons from Captain Crunch boxes for a t-shirt, or something like that.

Being only 22 years old, I had not heard of anything like this. I wish I could have some of that cereal! The rifle was only $125, I like old stuff, and considering it's interesting history I really considered buying it. I decided against it; for me it wasn't in optimal condition (though I am picky) and a single-shot .22 just isn't practical when I already have two other .22 rifles that are much more useful. Still, this was a neat old rifle and if college didn't eat up most of my money I would have bought it.

Anyone ever hear of this? Anyone ever buy a gun from a cereal box or the like? I want to hear your stories, as I can only dream of the days when rifles could be bought from the back of cereal boxes...

 

[Salmoneye]

My Uncle passed to me what as a kid we called 'The Mule'...It was a very light single shot 12ga...

On the stock, my Uncle had stuck on and clear nail polished over an S&H green stamp...He called it his 'Smith & Hesson' for the S&H...

He had acquired the gun for 14 books of Green Stamps back in the day...

I passed it to my BIL, and don't even remember the real maker...

 

[Dframe]

Yes prior to the anti-gun hysteria of the late sixties it was possible to obtain guns by mail order.

 

[Ranger Roberts]

Hammer059, what store were you at? Shyda's or Richland Shooters? If you were at Richland Shooters and you were talking to John, I can tell you that you can absolutely believe what he says. The guy is a walking encyclopedia of guns! He is to Lebanon county as RC Model is to The High Road.

 

[tcoz]

My Uncle passed to me what as a kid we called 'The Mule'...It was a very light single shot 12ga...

On the stock, my Uncle had stuck on and clear nail polished over an S&H green stamp...He called it his 'Smith & Hesson' for the S&H...

He had acquired the gun for 14 books of Green Stamps back in the day...

I passed it to my BIL, and don't even remember the real maker...

My mom used to have me lick and paste all of her S&H Green Stamps in the books then she never knew what to get with them. If only I had known.........

and yeah, I'm old.

 

[Grumulkin]

Yes prior to the anti-gun hysteria of the late sixties it was possible to obtain guns by mail order.

Yea, you could look at them and order out of the Montgomery Ward or Sears catalog.

My first real gun was a surplus 7X57 Mauser with a pitted barrel I bought cheap from Montgomery Ward, if I remember correctly.

There was a time, at least in Washington and I think elsewhere, you had to fill out paperwork to buy ammunition because of the 1968 Gun Control Act. Fortunately, that didn't last long.

 

[Coyote3855]

No guns, but my first sheath knife was acquired by collecting Popsicle wrappers. Took an unholy bunch of them. I still have the knife, about 65 years later. I've also read that cheap break action no-name revolvers were sometimes give as a "prize" with a sack of flour or horse feed. Sort of like Cracker Jacks.

 

[Conelrad]

I remember being a kid at the Yuma County Fair back in the 50's. If you won enough coin toss tries (and were an 'adult') one of the prizes was your pick from a bushel basket full of Nambu pistols.

There also was a guy in the West Yuma valley whose fence was made of hundreds of rusty bolt-action rifles welded together.

Dennis

 

[VINTAGE-SLOTCARS]

In the early 1960's my Dad got my older brother a .22 single shot Remington with green stamps. I have that rifle in my safe and it still looks new.

 

[Dr T]

If you are at a university with a big library, I suggest you go back and spend some time looking at the Magazines from before November 22, 1963.

You will likely be be astounded by the ads you see in Sports Afield and Outdoor Life.

And by the articles.

One warning: Do not do this if you have a major paper or exam coming up. It could lead to a disappointing set of circumstances that could adversely affect your GPA...

 

[Hammer059]

Ranger Roberts: This was at Shydas, I live right down the road next to South Hills Park. However, I do have a special place in my heart for Richland Shooters and drive out there when I get the chance. I've met John a few times, he seems like a great guy!

Conelrad: Hahah, that's awesome. If I was fortunate enough to have a bunch of old rifles, that would be a great idea for a fence (although my local Gubmint might not approve, lol).

Dr T: Next time I visit the library, which should be next week, I'll definitely do that. Good suggestion!

To all: What are the "green S&H stamps" you're referring to? I'm not familiar with them but I bet it would have been fun as a kid to collect the stamps and save up for a .22 rifle. I was born in the wrong decade!

 

[kBob]

S&H stamps were given to folks as a purchase incentive. If you bought X amount of dollars of groceries for instance at the Winn Dixie up on highway 90, you got N amount of S&W Green stamps. I believe A&P had Scots Maid stamps or some such that were much like them. Even some service stations gave green stamps for gas oil and service purchases.....whoa service stations where someone else pumped the gas, checked the oil and battery and washed the wind shield and you got green stamps at 36 cents a gallon.....gohd I am old.....

Anyhow at the store you could also pick up these little books that you would stick the stamps in and after you got a pile of books you could either order from a catalog or on one of your trips to the state capital (in our case) you could go to the S&H rememption center and actually handle the goodies you were going to get.

Think Air miles on your credit card or cash kick backs on your cards.

Frequently Mom would stash the week's green stamps in an envelope and the next week while she cut out coupons from the paper and mail ads my sister and I would compete to see who could lick and paste the stamps into a booklet fastest......hey we only got two real channels and "educational TV" (which at the time featured weird student projects like interpretive dance and screeching) and computers were only in Sci-fi movies not in your pocket.

Any other old farts attempt to sell greeting cards or Grit News to get "valuable prizes" as a 'Ute? A may still have a few Americna Standard Greeting Cards stuffed in old hardback books around here......and no new bike.....

I occasionally pull out an American rifleman from pre '64 (mail order handgun restrictions were actually pre GCA 68) and look over the WWII side arms available for what looks like near nothing......until I remember that Dad brought home 45 bucks a week then and my first 50 hour a week agri-job paid a princely 30 cents and hour, minus the ducks. Once with over time I actually carried home 15 bucks and was thrilled to no end at my riches.

30 cents an hour and cheap .22LR was 85 cents a 50 round box and the good stuff an even dollar..... and you folks are complaining today??????

In 68 my NIB ( from JM Fields) Ruger RST 4 cost me almost a week and a half of 40 hour work weeks that summer.

DCM sold 1911A1s around 1962 or 63 and folks still pester the CMP about it.

back around 1900 Daisy Air guns was originally in the windmill business. They created their first "It's a Daisy" air rifle as a gimme for folks buying their windmills. They got so many requests fro the air guns they quit making windmills and only made what they had been giving away as prizes......different time and place , eh?

That K98 I bought from the floor rack at WoolCo was cheap as all get out .....until I recall it cost two twenty hour weeks of after school and weekend pumping gas, checking oil and water and tires and washing windshields and oil changes and tire patching and mounting and cleaning rest rooms and sweeping the bays and the drive and vacuming cars with a fill up and "don't you dare accept a tip while I am paying you to do the job for MY customers and of course you have to pay full price for a soda and crackers even if you do know what they actually cost and loaded the machines yourself!"

Don't get over excited about those pre-68 prices.

=kBob

 

[joem1945]

Remember eagle stamps? They would give them out mostly at gas stations when you bought fuel. Place I worked provided company cars to get to job sites. Get gas and got some eagle stamps. The auditor or book keeper started asking us to turn in the eagle stamps when we got gas, (cheap b@stard). We either got them wet (sweat you know) and had them stuck together so he couldn't use them.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Back in the '40s and '50s there were marketing schemes where a boy could sell a product and earn a prize, including a cheap .22 rifle. One such product was White Clovine Salve, and the company advertised in comic books.

 

[mudstud]

I got my first .22 by selling something, it may have been Christmas cards, I honestly don't remember. My mother would drive me around to all the neighbors and I would sell. It was a Marlin bolt-action clip-fed .22 with a super cheap scope mounted. But, boy howdy, was I proud of that rifle! This would have been in the early 60's. Sadly, the rifle was lost when I spent 3 years in Uncle Sam's army.

 

[MistWolf]

Growing up in Southern California, we had Blue Chip stamps. I remember every now and then Mom would clear the stamps out of all the junk drawers and we'd have to help paste them in their books. For a long time, I'd find stray Blue Chip Stamps stashed in glove boxes and in the strangest places. I remember lickin' & stickin' a whole passel of stamps but I cannot recall any of the things we got for them.

Mom bought Dad a 10/22 Ruger as a gift and it was mailed to the house. I remember the many days dad would rush out to the mail box to wait for the mailman to bring it

 

[Bexar]

Rode my bike as an elementary school kid to the mall to look around and walked into a Sears. I had $20.00 of birthday money from several relatives and was hot to spend it. There was a rack of worn out British Enfields for $15.00 each. The clerk didn't even blink when I picked one and paid him for it. I asked him if he would hold it until my Dad could come pick it up in the car. He said yep. I must have been in either sixth or seventh grade because we moved out of bike range about that time to the Sears and I took the rifle to a WW2 show and tell in eighth grade. The year was about 1966 mas o menos.

 

[jcwit]

I have one of those Hoban Rifles, they were made in Michigan, north of Ann Arbor a ways. One of the ways kids could get them was selling Cloverleaf Salve.

I've toyed with having mine relined to fool the other oldsters in our club.

 

[Hammer059]

Wow, these are some awesome stories thanks folks. Really puts things in perspective!

Bexar, what's awesome is that not only did they sell an Enfield to a kid in elementary school, but you brought it in for show and tell! Nice!

kBob, that was very informative, thanks. Love the background on Daisy air rifles, that's really cool!

 

[Rembrandt]

Mid 1960's.....Brother got a Mossberg 410 bolt action by selling Christmas cards door to door. You could always find ads in the back of comic books and Boys Life for guns. After the gun control act of 1968 that all came to an end.

 

[HankB]

In the Chicago area we had S&H Green Stamps from some stores, Plaid Stamps from others (tried to compete with S&H), and smokers could collect Raleigh Coupons. (There was one on the back of each pack of Raleigh cigarettes.)

Don't recall Dad ever getting any guns for stamps or coupons, but I remember the Sears store on Western Avenue had a gun section . . . which dwindled over time and eventually disappeared. JC Penney sold guns, too . . .

As for pre-68 gun buying . . . you could get a good condition working semi-automatic 20mm Solothurn cannon back then (ammo, too!) via mail order. Darn shame the government outlawed it before I got old enough to take advantage of these opportunities . . .

 

[Hammer059]

As if I needed another reason to dislike Government, hah. I miss those days and I wasn't even alive then!

Call me paranoid but I've been stocking up on .22lr and 12 gauge like a madman… Seems like the next "gun control" measure is always right around the corner. The other week my neighbor/friend, who is relatively new to shooting, wanted his second rifle to be a Mosin. I got two of them from a nearby shop (my first one was a collectors item and I didn't even know it at the time!), so I went with him to help him pick one out. Much to our dismay, we learned that they were included in the "AK ban" on importing military firearms. Indirectly banning AK's was bad enough, but a 5 round bolt-action?!?! Cmon. Gone are the days of the $100 Mosin, unless I'm mistaken... I wish I was.

 

[Salmoneye]

Just realized...

I may have missed it, but I don't think anyone specifically answered the 'cereal-box' question (including me)...

I don't think it was so much that you could 'buy' the guns outright from ads on the box, but the fact that if you collected enough box tops and sent them with a set amount of cash, you could buy from a list of products...

There is an old kids 'camp song' where this is illustrated pretty well...

'Up In The Air Junior Birdman':

"When you hear the grand announcement,
That your wings are made of tin,
Then you know that Junior Birdman,
Has turned his box tops in.

For it takes:
5 box tops,
4 bottle bottoms,
3 coupons,
2 wrappers,
And one thin dime!"

http://makingmusicfun.net/htm/f_mmf_music_library_songbook/up_in_the_air_junior_bird_man_lyrics.htm

 

[BobWright]

Back in yesteryear, a .22 rifle could be had by selling Cloverine Salve. I went halfies with a neighbor to get one.

The rifle was a dead ringer for the Italian Carcano carbine, though the "magazine" was only sheet metal and false. Yep, load one cartridge, close the bolt and pull the cocking piece back to ready for firing.

And my first handgun was a Colt New Service .45 bought mail order from an ad in Popular Mechanics.

Bob Wright

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I saved up my S&H green stamps and got a Bible. (I had received a .22 for Christmas.)

I recall ads (I believe in comic books) where you could sell salve and with enough points pick from a selection of prizes including .22 rifles and BB guns.

There was a time ... you had to fill out paperwork to buy ammunition because of the 1968 Gun Control Act. Fortunately, that didn't last long.

When I was a kid in the late 1950s, early 1960s, Dad could stop at any general store or gas station on the way to the old mountain homeplace and buy .22 ammo for plinking on our weekend excursions. Then the federal gun law (GCA 1968) limited ammo sales to FFLs and I remember having to give my driver's license to the dealer while he recorded in a bound book my ID, amount of ammo, caliber, make. Eventually ATF admitted there was no law enforcement value to such records and it went away. But it started me on buying cartons of 10 boxes rather than single boxes, and stockpiling at least a five year supply in case the threatened bans or umpteen percent taxes were actually enacted.