Small non-firing cannon

Comments

• Huw Administrator Posts: 7,119

  November 2013

  Pirate sets made for the north American market didn't have firing cannons until quite recently due to local toy safety restrictions.

  

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• Bobkov Member Posts: 31

  November 2013

  ^ What he said.
  
  From what I remember, there were actually 4 versions around here. Late 80s we had dark gray spring loaded firing cannons with early pirates. Before even one season was finished, they had switched them all to non-spring loaded with black cascabel (the "handle" on the back). You could still "flick" the back of them to get the projectile to fire, but no spring.
  
  I'm not sure even a year had finished from that introduction when they had moved completely to solid pieces which could not be fired at all; these I believe all ended up with the crest on them, where as I don't recall the previous ones having crests (I'd have to check tonight on that).
  
  It wasn't until the most recent run of pirates that they started selling the 4th version, which again were spring loaded and were now a pearl dark gray.
  
  Bricklink lists the first three as all appearing in the same year (89).
  http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=x110c01
  http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=bb39
  http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=518
  
  
  On a side note, finding a crest on a new cannon after opening the box was always one of the more depressing parts of lego as a kid, assuming you had experienced the spring-loaded ones before hand...

  

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• LusiferSam Member Posts: 574

  November 2013

  The US market is a lot more litigious than other marker and the kids are apparently dumber. Projectile toys are consisted a chocking hazard.
  
  Anyway in '89 the first four sets, 6270, 6274, 6276 and 6285, had firing cannons when they were first released. My first Pirate set, 6270, had a US shooting cannon. Until 2009 it was the only set I had that came with a shooting cannon.
  
  When the second wave of Pirate sets were released in US in '90 they had the black handles. I've never heard of anyone who bought these in the US that had shooting versions. It was only the first four sers. I've heard you can open these cannons and make them into firing cannons. I guess there is a sleeve that blocks the pull back operation. Replace that with a spring and boom, you're shooting. I've tried this a number of times and I couldn't open them.
  
  Starting in '91 all US sets had the crested cannon. I've never seen any '91 or later sets that that were had shooting or non-shooting cannon sold in the US. I never minded the crested cannons that much. The black handled cannons I hated. You knew they could fire, but where made not to (I never found the flick technique very satisfy). With the crested cannons you know they couldn't shoot and that was that, end of story.

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• plasmodium Member Posts: 1,956

  November 2013

  At least the crested/black cascabel ones have a decorative merit...unlike the flick-fire missiles we get all over SW vehicles, which are equally useless as far as actually working is concerned...

  

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• CCC Member Posts: 20,556

  November 2013

  I agree ^. I much prefer some decoration over a fairly useless function.

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