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Flight 714: origin of the guns used in the book?

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famman47
Member
#11 · Posted: 14 Oct 2012 07:58
Tintin's gun in 714 is almost identical to a toy cap gun manufactured by Italian company Edison Giocattoli in the 1960s, called the Tigermatic (see an image here).
I've been unable to find any single real firearm upon which the design of this cap gun seems to have been based - while some of the Edison line of cap guns look very "realistic," they do not correspond to specific real firearms, but are instead a hodge-podge of attributes of different guns.
If anyone is interested, they can do what I did and search for "Edison Giocattoli Tigermatic" on the web and compare the pictures with what Hergé drew.
Haddock's gun on the other had is actually similar to some real firearms, those being the MGV-176 and the American 180.
jock123
Moderator
#12 · Posted: 14 Oct 2012 12:16
Welcome to the forums, famman47! That’s a very interesting piece of detective work there!

As you say, it isn’t identical, but it’s very close: I notice that the sight on the front of the barrel (sorry if those aren’t the correct term, but I’m not a guns person) appears slighly different, and the folding stock is given less of an “s” bend in the book (it goes down in a more or less right angle, then continues back in the drawings, but sort of doubles back on itself a little in the toy).

However the guns are so small on the page that I, in fact, may be finding differences where there are in fact none: there are other telling similarities which are very persuasive, such as the ridges along the start of the barrel, the triangular shaped hand-grip (I’m sure there must be a proper name for that!) under the barrel, and (perhaps most interesting) you can actualy see that the inner design on the hand-grip is reproduces in the book - see frame 4, page 33, where there is a quite clear line drawn around the inside of the piece.

I think you could be onto a winner here!

My remaining question is can we be certain that the toy was available at the correct time? Looking on eBay at past sales, I have seen it identified as from both the sixties and the seventies (one with the box as per your photo was definitely listed as seventies). We’d just have to eliminate the possibility that the toy was based on Hergé’s drawings, and I think you could have a match!
famman47
Member
#13 · Posted: 14 Oct 2012 22:55
I was just looking more closely at Haddock's gun and I see that there are in fact many cosmetic differences between it and the MGV-176 or the American 180, although the round "pan" type magazine on the top of Haddock's gun is suggestive of these real firearms.
I wonder if maybe there wasn't some other toy gun on the market at the time that Hergé could have based Haddock's gun on, that toy gun itself having been inspired by real firearms?

I emailed Edison Giocattoli asking them about the original release date of the Tigermatic cap gun. Hopefully I'll get a reply.
jock123
Moderator
#14 · Posted: 14 Oct 2012 23:46
famman47:
I wonder if maybe there wasn't some other toy gun on the market at the time that Hergé could have based Haddock's gun on

The same thought had occured to me: I’ve been searching online without success to see if I could find a toy catalogue of the period, which might have had something in it, and also less specific searches using “Giacattoli”, “pistola” as well as “mitragliatrice” and “mitraglia”, which Google translate tells me are Italian words for “machine gun”.

famman47:
I emailed Edison Giocattoli asking them about the original release date of the Tigermatic cap gun.

Thanks for doing that, it’s appreciated. As I say, I think you have made a very good case for Tintin’s gun; it’d be great to get some more evidence in it’s favour - and if they did Haddock’s gun too, then even better.

I can see that buying guns from a toy shop would have many benefits for the Studio - they get plausible but non-specific weapons, reasonably cheaply, in reasonable quantity if needed, and also don’t actually have to worry about any legal restrictions on real firearms.

I look forward to hearing any further up-dates you might have for us!

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