As a kid, I was drooling over ads in dads "deutsches waffen journal"(he is into archery, and was buying all magazines that had archery articles in them)...

And the Smith and wesson ads really got my attention: The S&W 79g looked like a "real pistol", and the 78g, the .22 version, was the first .22 air pistol I was ever aware of existed. That had to the thing to own, at least in the mind of a ten year old boy. I own two 79g's today, and sadly, have to say they are not what I was hoping..