Antique Whisle

metaldetectingtaylor

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Mar 21, 2011
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Found in area where most items date to early 1900's. From what I can make it out it says "Made in Japan" then it theres a triangle with an H inside it and under that either says H A R D or 6 A R D or maybe even G A R D and up close it may even have periods between the letters, and then it obviously says whistle underneath. Its pretty heavy also seems like brass. Any help would be great thanks!
 

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Here are some more pics. Appreciate the help
 

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metaldetectingtaylor said:
Here are some more pics. Appreciate the help
Is it brass or pot metal? I have been searching antique, brass, "police whistle", "made in Japan" lol.
 

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bigcypresshunter said:
metaldetectingtaylor said:
Here are some more pics. Appreciate the help
Is it brass or pot metal? I have been searching antique, brass, "police whistle", "made in Japan" lol.

Me too! :laughing7:
 

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The Diamond "H" logo looks to be the HALCO toy company, which was the J. Halpern Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Basically they distributed millions of Cap Guns that were produced by other companies. Some of these manufacturing companies even put the HALCO logo on their products.
Even though HALCO distributed mainly Western/Cowboy Cap Guns, they also made a few 'police' .45 type guns. One was in a Sergeant Bilko set and the other was in the Captain Gallant set. Both of these were TV shows of the 1950s.
My best guesstimate is: This whistle was made in Japan for the HALCO company and was in or an accessory for one of the 'police' type cap gun sets.
The first pic shows the HALCO "H" logo, which looks like a match. Breezie
 

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Interesting ...

I'm going to stick with the unidentified word and see what I can come up with on that. So far I have noticed that the T and E in WHISTLE do not have the little parts that hang down on the tops of the letters (not sure what those parts of a letter are called) so I am leaning toward either ... B ... D ... P on the partial letter that appears to be partially deteoriated away. In other words ... I think the little part that hangs down is a portion of an entire letter. But just how a B D or P might fit in, I don't have a clue yet.

Thus a possible ... _ _ A R (B D or P) _ The A and R are certain.

SBB :dontknow:
 

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Are we sure its the Halco logo? The Halco diamond is vertical but the whistle diamond logo is clearly horizontal. :dontknow: Same problem I had with the H in a diamond Heisey logo.
 

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I can't find my old police whistle but I recall it was the kind with a round drum and a flat mouth piece. It had a pea or some kind of hard round object inside the drum to make it warble. It was called a something or other "Thunderer". These whistles were used by my PD all the way back before statehood in 1907, so I don't know exactly how far back they went. But someone said they were made in England and I believe I recall that it had "Made in England"stamped somewhere on it. Every PD I ever visited had the very same identical whistle. They were made of solid brass and would really shine when polished up. But I have never seen one like the one being asked about. Monty
 

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Quite a few of the searches I've done refer to ...

"Railroad Guard Whistles"

And although I have found several railroad guard whistles, I cannot find one that matches the whistle in question. Plus, most that I've seen just have the railroad's initials on them, and not the word guard itself. In fact, I'm not even sure the mystery word is guard. But there are definitely railroad related whistles. So I guess this post of mine is more a case of much-to-do about nothing than it is a clue ... but ya just never know.

SBB
 

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SODABOTTLEBOB said:
Interesting ...

I'm going to stick with the unidentified word and see what I can come up with on that. So far I have noticed that the T and E in WHISTLE do not have the little parts that hang down on the tops of the letters (not sure what those parts of a letter are called) so I am leaning toward either ... B ... D ... P on the partial letter that appears to be partially deteoriated away. In other words ... I think the little part that hangs down is a portion of an entire letter. But just how a B D or P might fit in, I don't have a clue yet.

Thus a possible ... _ _ A R (B D or P) _ The A and R are certain.

SBB :dontknow:

If the A & R are certain, why does the A not match the A's in JAPAN?
 

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It looks like the same A to me but with corrosion. But I also think its a funny R. It may be corrosion and a poor casting of a P. The entire item looks to be a poor casting in cheap pot metal which as we know corrodes terribly. :dontknow:
 

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I think BCH nailed it when he said GUARD. It's a Crossing Guard or Safety Guard whistle. Breezie
 

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I realize this is somewhat whimsical, but hopefully the painted picture below will illustrate why I suspect there might be additional letters in the mystery word. The red dots indicate where I believe the likely extremes of the boxed imprints are, with the blue arrow pointing to the key area why I suspect there may be six or seven letters in that particular box.

Call me crazy, but I typically charge to the sound of the guns and to where I think possible clues might be found. I guess this is a case of thinking "inside" of the box. But rust is a rascal.

SBB :BangHead:
 

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There is enough room for a letter after WHISTLE so it may not be necessarily centered. Im leaning toward a generic GUARD WHISTLE that we may never ID. The H in diamond logo may be the key but I cant find an exact match. I suppose Halco toy is a good possibility but I question why they would stamp MADE IN JAPAN on an item or why they would have a cheap alloy metal whistle made in Japan when they make pot metal guns.


Breezie, are the Halco guns also stamped MADE IN JAPAN?
 

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