Jarts were a brand of lawn dart toy first sold around 1950 per some sources, or 1940s per others. You would toss them, trying to land inside a circular target. They had a weighted metal tip so they would stick upright into a lawn.
This was not a very good idea.
The metal tip was heavy and could fall with enough energy to penetrate a skull. At least three children were killed, with many thousands of injuries from mild to severe. Over 6100 in the US alone were sent to emergency rooms.
Attempts to ban the toy started around 1969. The US took them off the market in 1987, and Canada in 1988.
Similar toys are sold today, minus the deadly weapon part, with nerf or blunt tips designed to avoid penetration injuries.
Here are some actual jarts.
In the 70s, when I was a wee lad, my mom worked as a volunteer at the local hospital. One of the cool things we got to see on her tours around the place were x-rays of kids with lawn darts stuck in their skulls, hands, and legs.
It was real, eh, as in real scary product.
My friend told me one day he was out in the garden throwing darts as high as he could, because why not? His little brother went out, got hit in the head with a dart, but didn't understand what the hell this sudden extreme pain came from so he just froze, started screaming, and ran inside. With the dart stuck on top of his head.
Yeesh. I hope that was a regular dart, not a lawn dart.
Yeah I had a set and we would huck em up in the air as far as we could all the time.Just pure luck no one got impaled.
Same! My great aunt and uncle had an old set. The fact that they were banned only made them more appealing to me and my young relatives.
So they made cap grenades (like cap guns).they had heavy metal tip pieces where the cap was placed. Bad things ensued.
I made a post about those a couple months ago!