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In company with most other businesses, Daisy entered
the 1930’s suffering losses in sales and profits
because of the state of the national economy. As
the depression wore on Daisy learned that with fresh
new advertising and sales promotion it did not have
to “…take its lumps” with the rest of the world. It
set up a pattern of promotional activity that is
still the hallmark of the Daisy operation today.
One devise used to generate business
during the depression was an offer for youngsters to
trade in their old BB guns for new models. Much
that came in was pure junk but a surprising number
were in remarkably good shape and now make up much
of what is on display in the Daisy Airgun Museum.
The 1930’s also saw Daisy advertising
and promotions take on new directions that were to
keep it operating at full capacity throughout the
tough depression years. The first of those was a
tie in with a young cowboy circus star named Buzz
Barton. An instant sales success, another quickly
followed with the most popular cowboy movie
character of the time, Buck Jones.
The most successful, however, was
taken from the pages of the newspaper comic strip
Buck Rogers and the 25th
Century. Introduced in 1933, the Buck
Rogers Rocket Pistol was an instant success and was
quickly followed the next year by the Buck Rogers
Disintegrator Pistol and finally in 1935 by the
Liquid Helium Pistol. All of which set sales
records year after year.
Much of this ground breaking
advertising and promotional material from the 1930’s
is on display at the Daisy Airgun Museum.
1880 ║ 1890 ║
1900 ║
1910 ║
1920
║ 1930 ║
1940 ║
The War Years
1950 ║
1960 ║
1970 ║
1980 ║
1990 ║
2000 ║
The Museum
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