Collecting Western Toys: Books For Western Toy Pistols

I only have two books on the subject of collecting Western cap pistols of which Backyard Buckaroos is the best. It not only has pistols and rifles but Cowboy outfits for kids, badges, knives and a bunch more. Because absolutely no reference book has everything, I bought the Cap Guns book as well. It's far thinner having less pages and covers far less but does fill gaps left by the other book. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

"Backyard Buckaroos COLLECTING WESTERN TOY GUNS"  by Jim Schleyer

(Krause Publications 1996)

"Cap Guns with Values" by James Dundas

(Schiffer Publishing 1996)

Halco Western Cap Pistols x 2

These Halco cap pistols were added to the collection recently and unlike my TootsieToy Pony Boys, these are quite a bit smaller. I know nothing about the company but Halco appears to have been major player in the cap gun arena alongside Hubley, Mattel, Marx, and Nichols. These are on the small size of the Western toy pistol spectrum at 8 1/4" (20.95cm) L. They are more 'child sized' compared with the Pony Boys which are 9 3/4" (24.76cm) L. Fortunately these are fully functional, as sometimes these old cap guns no longer 'shoot' - pull the trigger and the hammer simply doesn't cycle and fire - but these work just fine. The caps are loaded on the side of the pistol by swinging up the bullet 'chamber' and inserting the cap roll. According to my sources on facebook these are a fairly universal pistol. Where the rectangular scrollwork below the chamber is can be altered to read 'MARSHAL' or 'PINTO' and apparently the tooling is still around and being used for new production. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

(T) Hubley (B) TootsieToy Pony Boy