Small cast iron heads

[bpm]

My 91 year old father in law inherited 11 of these from his older brother, along with other antique toys, crocks, etc. The lower jaws move up and down and a hook or string hole is at the top of the jaw movement. The letters "S A Y" or raised on the back of the head. Could they be a toy of some kind? I have a picture I'm trying to attach.

All of his things were collected in Lancaster County, PA and he had quite a collection but these I have never seen before.

Thanks for your help,

bpm

[Rauville]

Hello and welcome;
Those would be "Yellow Kid Cap Bombs". The original ones dated back to the late 1890's and were modeled after the "Yellow Kid" comic strip character of the time. There were designed to put a cap gun "cap" in the lower jar, and suspend the head on a string that you would snap like a yoyo and explode the cap.
http://shop.showcaseantiques.com/product_info.php/cPath/56/products_id/8240


Update:
I just reread this post and noticed the reference to Lancaster County, PA. These "heads" were produced by Grey Iron Casting, which was located in Mount Joy, PA (Lancaster County). Makes sense to find a group of them there. Nice!

[mart]

I knew you would know what these were Rauville !!  Before my time and I didn`t have a clue !!

[bpm]

Thanks so much! It was nice to find this site as my interest in antiques has been peaked from my wife and now her dad.These little heads had be stymied but I did grow up with the little "missiles" you could put a cap (or caps), in and drop from high places. Did they have paper caps back in the early 1900's?

Thanks again.

bpm

[mart]

My cap gun days were in the 50`s and the roll caps were what we used !! Would like to know too !!

[bpm]

This might help...

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/toys/cap-guns


bpm

[KC]

What a fun find!  Love the old iron cap bombs.

Haven't seen many of these.

They sell for $57 up to over $100.  The more unique ones (president's heads, dogs, clowns can sell for over $300...each!!!

These were before my time as well....but then, most antiques I collect were!    My time was the cap guns and my favorite...the cap bombs (shaped like a missle).  Just a hammer worked well too!  

[mart]

Yep !!  The missle shaped ones we had "war" with !! Only problem we had with those was you needed a solid surface to hit on !! We had sand !! We took the roll caps and unrolled them and lit the end for machine gun fire !! Ran out of caps pretty quickly !! Can you tell I was raised with a bunch of boys ??