Atomic Advent Calendar: Day 11 Gift Idea

Uranium Rush was an “exciting new electric game for the family” produced by Gardner Games in the 1950s. In fact, this was an Educator Approved Prestige Toy and selected as one of 104 Outstanding Toys of 1955. For only $2.95 ($24.01 in 2019 dollars), you could join the prospecting hoards.

All the players begin with $15,000, then spin the arrow to determine where on the board the player can prospect. Stake a claim for only $1000! You can test the claim to make sure it’s belching with uranium using the Geiger Counter. Touch the base of the Geiger Counter to the player’s master plug and touch the tip of the wire to the small metal circle around the mine. If it buzzes, you’ve just received $50,000 from the gub’ment! Follow the directions, and pass to the next person. When all the claims have been staked, the most money wins — just like how it really happens! Yeeehaw!

Buzz your way to fun and fortune while decked out in your best uranium prospecting duds!

Atomic Advent Calendar: Day 10 Gift Idea

Safe! Exciting! Instructive! And you might even get a $10,000 reward from the government for finding uranium!

The A.C. Gilbert Company released a variety of instructive lab kits in the 1950s for kids to conduct radiation experiments for a reasonable price. The Geiger Counter was included with their Atomic Energy Lab, but could also be purchased separately.

In the 1950s, we were positively gaga over Geiger counters and finding uranium — the biggest gold rush since, well, the gold rush. For only $21 ($223.55 in 2019 dollars), you could get this working Geiger counter and possibly strike it rich. With a neon light indicator recessed in the top, the radioactivity was indicated by means of flashes as well as clicks in the earphones.

Atomic Advent Calendar: Day 9 Gift Ideas

As the Cold War became prominent after World War II, numerous toys and games became available to young children. The popularity of military toys helped children to express the events in the adult world by acting out what they saw in movies and on TV. Similarly, these Giant Atomic Bombs were shaped like rockets which held a cap on its tip that exploded when it struck a hard surface.

The display box reassured parents that it’s a safe, harmless cap shooting toy, and did not actually contain any radioactive materials. The “bombs” were futuristic with tiny robot figures on the sides and came in yellow, black, and green — similar in color to the fallout shelter signs.

The box showed a variety of jets and planes dropping bombs, including a Convair B-36 Peacemaker, in use by the United States Air Force from 1949-1959. Kids could buy one or a whole box load of bombs to throw at each other to role play the effects of atomic warfare.

Buy one! Buy one hundred! Just don’t think about the real ones in the missile silos.