Just don't let NEPHEW play with it!

Make sure Frog knows the only birds he can shoot at are house sparrows and starlings.

Frog can come to my house with his gun. We have lots of timber rattlersnakes killing his kin folks.

My grandnephew (for real) just shot a hole in one pane of my mother's double pane windows with a bb gun. He thought he was out of "ammo" as he said. His excuse was that he was aiming for his brother but missed. Thank God he missed.

Thank God nobody was looking out the window! Sounds like he just lost a bb-gun.

He is a very bad example for nephew

When that bb hit the window, we all jumped out of our skins. We were sitting just inside at the kitchen table. He wrote a letter of apology to my Mom.

Yikes! Take it away, quickly!

We had a BB gun for sale at a garage sale long ago. The boy down the road needed to bring his dad to make sure he would sit down with him and make sure he understood the safety rules and that it is not a toy.

We knew the boy and dad and were sure it would be used properly. They had a great place with lots of land behind their house. The perfect place for something like that.

The BB gun that Frog is holding in the photo is really a rather valuable collectors item.

Back in 2005 I was working for a property manager that was buying abandoned houses super cheap, then we were flipping them for low income rentals. One of the houses I worked on was originally built in 1900 and when built it had no bathroom. In 1929 they fully enclosed a small section of the screened front porch and converted that to a tiny bathroom. The room was so small that they cut the end of the lavatory cabinet at a 45deg angle so the door could swing 1/2 way in to get in or out of the room. I relocated the toilet and installed a pedastal sink so they could actually open the door all the way...LOL.

The interior walls were lathe & plaster with no insulation and the existing water pipes were galvanized iron pipe, which had been there for 76 years and well beyond its expected service life, so we gutted out the walls, installed insulation, new copper pipe and wallboard.

While gutting the walls out I ran across what looked like a piece of 1" pipe with a cap on the end just leaning up against one of the 2x4 studs. When I touched it I discovered it was loose so I lifted it out to see what it was, and too my surprise it was that BB gun, only it was smaller than any BB gun I had ever seen and it was covered with so much dirt and grime that I really could tell what it was. Out of curiosity I took it home with me and later I began cleaning it up. Having had a half a dozen BB guns as a kid I knew that the typical BB guns were 42 to 48inches long, but this one was only 30" end to end. On closer inspection I realized that the wood stock on this one was just a piece of 1" thich pine wood that was cut to the shape of a stock and the top and bottom edges had been rounded over with a router, then a coat of shellac was applied as a finish. At first I thought maybe the stock had been broken and somebody home made this one, but as I looked I realized the barrel & metal body was also only 2/3 the size of a normal BB gun. I then cocked it and while pointing it at the ground, I pulled the trigger. Whaaam, a huge puff of air rustled dirt & twigs on the ground. Now that was amazing because BB guns of that vintage had a leather washer in the air mechanism that had to be oiled regularly or it would dry out and not shoot. This one had been closed up in the wall for 76 years and it still worked fine. As I began cleaning the metal I found the manufacturers information saying that it was made by "Daisy MFG" in Michigan.

About a week later I sent an email to Daisy with photos and explaining what I had and where I found it. (I also told them that on all the BB guns I ever had there was a hole on the underside of the barrel where you loaded your BB's. but this one had no hole to load BB's)

In a couple days I received a very pleasant reply from Daisey. According to them, back in the 1920's to 40's it was almost a right of passage for young boys to have a BB gun, and the "Daisey RED RYDER" was the hands down, cream of the crop but that was during the depression era and very few families could afford the $6 to $12 for a real "Red Ryder" so from about 1928 until 1939 Daisy made the 2/3 size BB gun that I have and it was marketed as "A Daisey For a Buck", and yes, you guessed it, the selling price was a buck, One dollar + SH.

They also told me that the original Daisey Red Ryder was a repeater. You could load 50 BB's then just cock the gun and tip the barrel down and up again to load a bb, but the Daisy for a Buck was a single shot. You cock it, then drop a bb down the barrel like a muzzle loader. They said that was the only single shot rifle they ever made.

About a year ago a friend of mine, who is a gun dealer, was preparing to go to a gun show and he asked if he could borrow my bb gun as a conversation piece at his booth, to which I agreed. When he brought it back he said, "If you ever want to sell that gun let me know first. I had ppl at my booth offer $500 for it, and I am sure I could get more if I list it to collectors."

Great story about the bb gun!

Great story-I'd sell that gun ASAP. Maybe I've been watching too many American Pickers.

I'd get that BB gun away from Frog and let your friend sell it for you.

Wow! What a great story behind the BB gun. I'd keep it until its value goes up enough to keep you, Jan, Frog and Nephew living comfortably for the rest of your lives. Perhaps, enough to adopt other abandoned frogs too.