2019 Atomic Advent Calendar Gift Ideas Day 12

Let’s practice dropping atom bombs! Test your aim! A thrill a second! Cyclone action! It’s not for enormous destruction, just enormous pleasure!

Mutoscope’s 1946 arcade game, “Atomic Bomber,” allowed coin-droppers to line up a set of cross hairs to colored dots on the rotating drum. If a hit is achieved, a “bomb blast” is see on the backglass of the machine, or the Reflectograph.

With lots of atomic jargon in the sales brochure, the marketers practically guaranteed an outlet for “Atomic Thinking” and “chain-reaction” sales of the arcade game.

For an interesting video describing its history and to see the game in action, visit: The Story Behind 1946’s Arcade Game Atomic Bomber from GameInformer.

2019 Atomic Advent Calendar Gift Ideas Day 11

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!

2019 Atomic Advent Calendar Gift Ideas Day 10

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.