The “Secret Agent set” from HG Toys is the U.N.C.L.E. gun we should have had. This unauthorized knockoff, marketed a decade after the series went off the air (seen here in the 1979 Montgomery Ward Christmas catalogue), was part of a whole range of “Ultra Force 1” gun sets made by HG. The secret agent set featured nice replicas of a standard P-38 and the Bushnell Phantom scope used on the real U.N.C.L.E. Special. And unlike Ideal’s gun, HG included an “extended magazine” that clipped on the pistol butt, mimicking the double-length magazine of the real Special. There was, unfortunately, no barrel extension, only that long, wicked-looking silencer.

Norman Felton, second from

left, David Victor, third from

left, Robert Vaughn and David

McCallum receive a toy

U.N.C.L.E. gun from Ideal Toy

Company execs, marking

release of the gun to stores

in June 1965.

The package photo of Vaughn holding the real gun is interesting for several reasons. That’s the original version of the U.N.C.L.E. Special, built on a Mauser pistol and using a barrel extension with a polished wood grip and no silencer. This configuration was never used on the show, only in early publicity photos. The Mauser was used with a different barrel extension in several episodes, but it frequently misfired and was soon dropped in favor of the familiar Walther P-38 version.

This photo also is interesting because it’s a cutout, attached to the box only by two tabs. So most of us removed the photo, kept that, and threw away the box (never dreaming what toy collectors would pay decades later for original packaging).

Sears Roebuck 1966 Christmas catalogue page, above, with U.N.C.L.E. section enlarged at right.

Finally, that nice big color photo only emphasized what a poor facsimile the toy was. The pistol bore no resemblance whatsoever to a P-38, a Mauser, a .45 (as the toy was often referred to in promotional copy), or any real gun that ever existed. The attachments were superfluous (a bipod?) and ridiculous (the stock was mounted on a cup that slid onto the pistol butt). It was obvious even to a 12-year-old that Ideal’s gun was poorly designed and a huge disappointment to U.N.C.L.E. fans.