The Hat or the Gun? Which Would You Choose?

A couple of older wax packs that I've opened in recent months have had some pretty funny mail-in offers that I thought might amuse you all. First, from 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee hockey we have the plastic gun with suction cup darts:

Way back in 1982, the year I was born, any kid could scrounge up a dollar and send it off Ontario along with 5 O-Pee-Chee hockey wrappers, then wait anxiously for their suction cup dart gun to arrive in the mail. Not surprisingly, I couldn't find any auctions for or pictures of said gun, nor can I find any pictures of a "revolver style" suction cup dart gun like the one depicted on the wrapper. I think it's safe to assume this would've broken within days or even hours, if it worked at all. Not to mention you'd be the laughing stock of all the cool kids who were using the far more sophisticated NERF guns, of which my brothers and I owned quite a few.

Of course, in this politically correct day and age, I doubt any trading card company could get away with a promotion that provides a child with a toy that even somewhat resembles an actual gun. What is this world coming to? One final note, there is no expiration date specified for this offer, so I am pretty tempted to send 5 of these off to Upper Deck with a dollar enclosed just to see what happens.

The other interesting mail-in offer is found on a 1986 Fleer baseball wrapper:

Fleer was offering this very cool All Star Collector's hat! In this case you had to pony up $2.95, which is a bit steep, but you only needed 3 proofs of purchase compared to O-Pee-Chee's 5. In return you got this cap, which features 8 pockets around the hat where you can insert your favorite cards and impress your friends. I couldn't find any pictures of this hat either, but if you know of one I'd love to see it.

If I had shown up to school wearing this back in the day, I would've had my ass kicked and my lunch money stolen (along with the 8 cards) by lunch time, guaranteed!

As a kid I would've chose the gun over the hat, but if I could pick one now I'd take the hat, fill it with Whalers cards and take a picture of myself wearing it to use as my Blogger profile photo. Which item would your childhood self rather have had?