J is for Jungle Shooting Match

Berwick Games attic find! Very redolent of its time, hunting big-game is just not something you'd make a game off now! This was absolutely filthy and nearly went in the recycling; the roofing-felt in the attic is a fluffy variety about 130-years old, and for some time has been collapsing under its own weight having dried to the consistency of cold-war Eastern-Bloc fag-packet cardboard, covering everything in the attic in a black snow.

But, as you can see it cleaned-up OK and was in better nick than I expected, so it's gone to storage for now, and I will chuck it on feeBay at some point in the future. I can well remember this, we had hours of fun on wet winter's days, lying on our bellies and sniping*(1) some of the rarest animals on earth!*(2)

 

The animals were (are!) only vac-formed polystyrene sheet, and it wasn't long before we literally blew one apart, so Mum, who was nothing if not ingenious, made them all backing cards from corrugated-cardboard, and here they are 50-odd years later, almost as good as new . . . Except the gorilla!

 

Not so the cork-firing pistols, one has absented itself entirely (decades ago), and the other is broken across the barrel, but I will try to fix it up at some point, maybe get a post out of that exercise? Quite a James Bond looking thing, I think?

 

Same mechanism as most toy artillery, pull back to the catch, and then fire, the plunger is near flush with the end of the barrel, propelling the cork with enough force to pop the animals out of their little die-cut card catch, and blow the feet off the gorilla! The animal then shoots up with an over-dramatic death throw, due to its elastic thread!

Two pea-shooter tubes were supplied to stand it up on a flat surface, but it's easier to prop it against a wall or piece of furniture. And I think this is a rare survivor, as I haven't seen one on evilBay yet, despite looking quite often, hoping for replacement parts?

 

*

(1) Kids; it's not good to shoot things!

(2) No animals were harmed in the making of this post!