If you have a story about the mischief you got up to with your Sekiden, this is the place to share it.
Canada 1980s
I actually discovered these pistols "or something quite like them" During the early 80s at a small independent Asian owned toy store in British Columbia, Canada.
The only silver balls were the blue bag variants which they sold for a pittance.
The first version (and the best versioN) appears to be the standard Sekiden though i remeember it being far more like a 1911 pistol. Eventually it seemed to get phased out for a P38 version which had a recipocating/indexing barrel which I remember not being as good. BB's were the same blue bag types.
The only silver balls were the blue bag variants which they sold for a pittance.
The first version (and the best versioN) appears to be the standard Sekiden though i remeember it being far more like a 1911 pistol. Eventually it seemed to get phased out for a P38 version which had a recipocating/indexing barrel which I remember not being as good. BB's were the same blue bag types.
Posted by Jeff on 29 August 2021
Sekiden
I went on the Norfolk Broads with my brother Andrew and best mate Rick with his parents in the early sixties.We each had a Sekiden pistol and spent the whole week shooting each other.Gold pellets made of clay,that disintegrated when wet.We used up our ammo by the middle of the week but found a toy shop in Gt Yarmouth where we spent most of our pocket money stocking up.
Posted by Ian on 20 March 2021
Alternative Ammo
OMG these were a prized possession in my day. Complete with home made shoulder holster.
Silver/gold balls were far too expensive considering how many of them you had to shoot in order to hit anything. We used to use dried peas. So cheap, worked just as well and actually hurt when you hit skin . . well, hurt more than the silver beads,
Silver/gold balls were far too expensive considering how many of them you had to shoot in order to hit anything. We used to use dried peas. So cheap, worked just as well and actually hurt when you hit skin . . well, hurt more than the silver beads,
Posted by Ian RM on 22 August 2016
This takes me back...
For no readily accountable reason, this morning I found myself thinking about some of my childhood toys, and remembered my Sekiden. I loved the thing, I had many toy firearms over the course of my sproghood but my Sekiden was one of the best. Bought it at the paper shop at the end of our street at some point in the mid-late 70s. Unfortunately it broke in the course of performing its duty, but I'll always remember it. Once it had met its demise, I got a similar (non-branded, as far as I remember) item, but this one was a slightly more streamlined design, moulded in bright blue plastic and fired yellow, bouncy rubber pellets. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
Posted by Ratbag on 21 February 2016
The blue plastic model that shot rubber yellow pellets was most likely the Zebra. Google Zebra toy gun. I had one of these also, but I liked the Sekiden better.
Posted by Robert on 02 May 2016
The best toy gun ever! During my long-lost childhood in the dear, dead 1970s I had a couple of toy guns I really loved – especially my roll-cap firing Luger (had two actually, one with missing grips) – but nothing beat the Sekiden S.A.P. 50. My brother and I would buy them at this little hole in the wall toy & novelty store that was jam-packed with colourful stuff. The Sekidens came in a bag stapled inside a card, which I seem to recall had a blue label, and I think included a little packet of ammo. They might have cost as much as $1.50, and additional boxes of ammo were probably 50c or so. I always found that dried peas would split and jam the gun, but oddly enough a tree across the street from our house put out these small fuzzy berry-like seeds and they worked pretty well.
We were always shooting each other with these things. Once we staged a “killing” for the benefit of a passing cop car and got a fairly aggressive inquisition/lecture for our trouble. The most memorable incident was one particular afternoon maybe around 1975 or so where my brother and his friend got forted up behind…I don’t know, pillows or something…on the other side of the back lawn from myself and my friend, all four of us armed with Sekidens, and shot it out for what seemed like hours. Silver beads were scattered everywhere in the grass around us, making it easy to keep up the rate of fire, and it was just the most fun ever. Really that was the ultimate Sekiden experience, and the ultimate toy gunfight - four guns going at once with that continuous rapidfire “spanging” noise while we were all caught in this blizzard of silver projectiles, laughing gleefully with the vicarious thrill of “killing” each other over and over while it just went on and on – so satisfying!
Years ago I was lucky enough to find a few Sekidens on eBay, including a couple in unopened packages, and it was a pretty special moment when I pried up the staples on one and held in my hand this mint Sekiden that had been in its package since that moment in the factory in Japan back in the 1960s or 70s. It had this odd, cheap synthetic rose perfume scent that I imagined as being worn by the Japanese woman who sealed the package that particular morning in 1966 or whenever. Knowing I was the first person ever to pull the trigger and hear that “Spatang!!” was just magical.
Growing up on the west coast of Canada, we had plenty of imports from Asia even back then including toys, model kits and so on, but the Sekiden was one of the coolest and most fun toys I ever had.