In addition to the spring air BB guns, Daisy also markets a line of multi-pump pneumatic rifles capable of firing pellets or BBs to the same age group. These simple smoothbore, spring-air BB guns fire at low velocities, and are marketed to children ages 10 and over. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Red Ryder model, which is still in production today, despite the fact that the Red Ryder comic strip was canceled in 1963. Production ĭaisy is best known for their inexpensive youth BB guns, modeled after lever-action rifles. In 2016, Daisy was sold by Charter Oak to another private equity firm, Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co., who combined it with Gamo Outdoor. The Daisy Administration building, on Main Street, is still standing and has become an office complex and restaurant. The wall had been free-standing since the factory was torn down, and was supposed to be built into an apartment building, but the wall was not included in the completed building. One wall of the factory building remained in front of the complex until its demolition on November 18, 2013. The Plymouth factory was demolished in 2005 and replaced with a condominium complex called Daisy Square. In 1993, Daisy was acquired by the private equity firm Charter Oak Partners. In 1958, the company moved the corporate offices and manufacturing facilities from Plymouth to Rogers, Arkansas. The acquired Markham Company changed its name to King Air Rifle Company in 1928, and continued to manufacture the Markham "King" Model air rifle until 1935, before ceasing operation all together in the 1940s. Daisy's continued market lead eventually led the Markham management to give up competing and quietly sold out to two Daisy executives in 1916, and Captain Markham himself moved to California.
Perhaps the most famous model was the Little Daisy, Model 20, which was made continuously with only three model changes between 19 and at times sold for less than fifty cents. In 1901, Daisy introduced a 500-shot lever-action rifle (predating Markham's by nine years), and special guns were even built to shoot streams of water at Masonic initiations. The Daisy BB Guns continued to outsell its competitors, and by 1895 its sales and popularity had grown to the point that the Plymouth Company ceased the manufacture of windmills, began producing airguns exclusively, and the board voted to change the company name to Daisy Manufacturing Company.
However, Plymouth's marketing strategy was much better, as by 1900, 15% of their sales revenue was being spent on posters and magazines space, with the net result of such intensive promotion being to make Daisy virtually a household word, while Markham paid little effort on advertising.
This began many years of intense competition between Plymouth and Markham, who responded by introducing their metal "Chicago" (1888) and "King" (1890) model BB guns. The board of the Windmill Company then decided to offer the gun as a bundled premium item to every farmer who purchased a windmill. General manager Lewis Hough test fired the gun and exclaimed, "Boy, it's a daisy!", and the new gun was named the "Daisy BB Gun". On March 6, 1888, Hamilton approached the windmill company board with an all-metal airgun design of his own and sought to use the factory blast furnaces to mold and stamp the metal parts necessary to build his gun. Sage) in 1886 - manufactured by the Markham Air Rifle Company just across the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Markham (though some argued that the real inventor was George W. In January 1888 the company board met to consider closing the factory, but the motion to liquidate failed by one vote - that of general manager Lewis Cass Hough.Īround the corner from the windmill company, Hamilton also operated the Plymouth Air Rifle Company, to compete with the Markham "Challenger" - a new type of wooden spring-powered airgun shooting BB-size round shot invented by Captain William F. By the mid-1880s the business was struggling, as transporting the heavy steel windmills by wagons throughout the southern part of Michigan, northern Indiana, and throughout Ohio was impractical. The company started in 1882 by watchmaker and inventor Clarence Hamilton in Plymouth, Michigan, as the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, to manufacture a type of vaneless windmills that Hamilton invented in 1880.
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