Atomic Advent Calendar: Day 8 Gift Idea

With this toy plane, you can bomb the daylights out of targets including a railway gun, tank, field artillery, truck convoy, and supply dump. Score points by dropping the metal bomb from the United States Air Force plane’s all metal bomb release. Dive bomb for the glory of the Cold War. Circle ’round and give that tank its due! Better take care of that railway gun before it takes care of you!

The Atom Bomber was manufactured in the late 1940s by Thomas Toy (Thomas Manufacturing Corp.). Made of plastic parts, the bomb doors were metal, and the included atom bomb was made of lead – perfect for young kids and a substitute for licking the lead paint on the walls.

Atomic Advent Calendar: Day 7 Gift Idea

This ring spinthariscope was available beginning 1946 by sending in a boxtop of Kix cereal plus 15¢ (only $1.73 in 2019 dollars) to receive a seething scientific sensation. With it, you could see atoms smashed to smithereens! Go to a dark room, take off the red plastic tail fin, wait until your eyes adjust to the darkness, then peer into the unknown of the warhead and see frenzied flashes of light caused by the released energy of atoms splitting like crazy.

This small spinthariscope had polonium alpha particles that struck a zinc sulfide screen. With a half-life of 138 days, polonium-210 is considered safe at very minute levels and is found in uranium ores. Although, polonium is considered one of the most biologically dangerous materials. A microgram of polonium-210, about the size of a speck of dust, can deliver a fatal dose of radiation.

The scintillations were exciting for a while, but eventually you would just have a fun ring with a secret compartment. And you would have avoided the fate of Irene Joliot-Curie and Alexander Litvinenko.

Atomic Advent Calendar: Day 6 Gift Idea

More fun than Slim Pickens had riding an H-Bomb to the netherworld, your kid can scoot down the street on this Little Boy while the neighbors run for cover, as the world has certainly come to an end!

At the end of World War II, the military had a surplus problem, including hundreds of 100-lb. practice bombs. What else can you do with a 35-1/2 inch practice bomb? Make it into a ride upon scooter, of course! With all steel construction, rubber tires, and a handle grip, these sold, at their peak for $7.95 in 1946 (about $104.92 in 2019 dollars).

By Christmas of 1946, they were selling for a reduced price of $5.95, and by spring of 1947, often reduced to $3.95. As such, they probably weren’t that popular. Unfortunately, 100-lb. practice bombs had flooded the surplus market, so just about anyone with some simple mechanical skills could easily replicate it for about $1.50.

So hurry and get yours so the little ones can become Destroyers of Worlds. And then maybe, just maybe, we’ll meet again some sunny day!