The Battle of Britains

 No, that wasn't a typo. This week's item is a die cast metal anti tank gun that I've had at least since I was six. It was produced by Britains LTD and, naturally, was made in England! This toy was, apparently, made from the mid to late 1960s and probably couldn't be sold today. Let's take a closer look and see why...

Here she is in all her olive green glory! The gun measures about five inches long.

A rather dangerous view. 

A much safer view. The silver button can be pressed and the gun raised or lowered for aiming. The breech is spring loaded, which means you can actually fire this sucker!

A shot of the "Britains" marking...

And of the "England" mark.

And here she is sitting next to her ammo of choice. You see, the gun originally came with plastic pegs to load it with, but those lasted about 15 minutes before they were all lost. It only took me about five minutes to discover that toothpicks work great, however!

You simply snap a toothpick in half, draw back the spring, put the toothpick in the breech, flip the sping back over and SNAP! the toothpick flies out! How far? Well, I actually tested it for this post, and I averaged about thirteen feet! That's why I'm pretty sure you won't be finding one of these in the toy aisle any time soon.

A closer look at the workings...

And the gun in the lowered position. 

I actually looked this toy up online and found these...

I'm pretty sure this is what the packaging on mine looked like. I don't really remember it, but this picture set off a few bells for me.

These are in a nicer box, though. The main reason I'm including these pictures is that you can see the plastic "shells." Wow, I haven't seen those in a few decades!

So there you have it! It's a really fun toy and it's really well built! It works just as well as the day I brought it home, about 55 years ago! So, I think it was a really good investment, overall!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!