Probably the best Christmas present I ever received was a
pair of Fanner 50s, complete with genuine leather holsters:
I was around 10 years old and a typical American boy with a fixation on violence, particularly the black-and-white wild-west violence that was prevalent on the three TV networks of the time – The Roy Rogers Show, The Gene Autry Show, The Cisco Kid, Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide, Cheyenne, The Rifleman, Maverick, Tombstone Territory, The Lone Ranger, Colt .45, Death Valley Days, Lawman, Wyatt Earp, The Virginian, Wichita Town, Gunsmoke, The Rebel (there were more). I have a picture of me, age 5, shoveling snow, wearing a coonskin cap from the Davey Crockett Show (“Killed him a bear when he was only three”). The Fanner 50 was the must-have weapon for 10-year-olds in the late 1950s, a cap gun marketed by Mattel through Disney. If you had a Fanner 50 – or better yet, like me, a pair of Fanner 50s – you couldn’t be out-dueled at the OK Corral in the vacant lot next to our house on Fairmount Avenue. The big selling point of the Fanner (and why it was named Fanner) was the wide flair on the hammer. Instead of having to pull the trigger, wasting precious time wasting the bad guys, you could just whip the Fanner 50 out of its holster with one hand and “fan” the hammer – quickly pulling it back with the palm of your other hand, making it a proto-semi-automatic cap gun. Deadly.
I was around 10 years old and a typical American boy with a fixation on violence, particularly the black-and-white wild-west violence that was prevalent on the three TV networks of the time – The Roy Rogers Show, The Gene Autry Show, The Cisco Kid, Have Gun Will Travel, Rawhide, Cheyenne, The Rifleman, Maverick, Tombstone Territory, The Lone Ranger, Colt .45, Death Valley Days, Lawman, Wyatt Earp, The Virginian, Wichita Town, Gunsmoke, The Rebel (there were more). I have a picture of me, age 5, shoveling snow, wearing a coonskin cap from the Davey Crockett Show (“Killed him a bear when he was only three”). The Fanner 50 was the must-have weapon for 10-year-olds in the late 1950s, a cap gun marketed by Mattel through Disney. If you had a Fanner 50 – or better yet, like me, a pair of Fanner 50s – you couldn’t be out-dueled at the OK Corral in the vacant lot next to our house on Fairmount Avenue. The big selling point of the Fanner (and why it was named Fanner) was the wide flair on the hammer. Instead of having to pull the trigger, wasting precious time wasting the bad guys, you could just whip the Fanner 50 out of its holster with one hand and “fan” the hammer – quickly pulling it back with the palm of your other hand, making it a proto-semi-automatic cap gun. Deadly.
Granted my playing gunfights with my Fanner 50s was not on a
par with the violence of Mortal Kombat or Grand
Theft Auto that kids today get to play. But it’s what we had, all we
had back then. I blew away many of my playmates, and many more imaginary foes, falling
before me in the mirror of our living room, the cap smoke floating from the
barrel of my gun. I’m not sure what the effects of all this violence in my
youth had upon me. I’ve never actually killed anyone in my adult life, though.
And beyond some drug use and traffic violations, I’ve never broken the law. But
there are times when those Fanner 50s still make their way into my dreams.
I thought the gun came from the show Johnny Ringo. The show opened with him fanning a pistol into a bullseye. As I remember that show really started the fanner pistol.
ReplyDeleteI had a "hands up" holster that triggered the fanner 50 when a nylon string from the holster tip swiveled the holster up when the hands were raised. very tricky feature of holster.
ReplyDeleteYour story is like my story.....it was a good time...thank you
ReplyDeleteyou know...just between you and me...it was a GREAT time to just be a kid! My brother and I spent the entire summer after school was out with my grandparents in southern Missouri...I can remember my brother Will and I taking our Fanner 50's on the train to my grandparents house where we spent the whole summer shooting each other off of our Shetland ponies as we recklessly raced thru a newly cut alfalfa fields! What fun!!!!
ReplyDeleteHonestly can't recall if I had one or not. I didn't know if they a real thing in the 1800's, so I did a search. Enjoyed J. L. McClure trip back through our collective youth. Anyone remember the show Sundance? Great theme song and Sundance had a hat I dearly wanted!
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