What do you want to know?

[MacGyver]

I don't think any of The Hardy Boys one-off spinoff books (Super Sleuths! Books, Camp Fire Stories or Ghost Stories, etc.) have any depictions of guns on the covers. And it doesn't look like any of the original text or revised original 58 books do either. However, the Collins hardback printing of The Secret of the Caves has an old dude holding a rifle on Frank and Joe. The Armada paperback printing of this book (the one from the early '80s) has him actually firing it at Frank and Joe. The 1980s Armada paperback printing of Trapped at Sea has Frank and a bad dude struggling for control of a gun on the cover.

[tomswift2002]

The Hardy's do own guns, and as I remember, Fenton even gave the boys guns for Christmas.  And Frank did fire a rifle at a chicken thief in the 1928 "Mystery Of Cabin Island".

[MacGyver]

I have a feeling this bit about Frank and Joe owning guns was probably only in the original text. Do you recall if it's mentioned in the revised text as well?

[tomswift2002]

In the revised text Fenton gives them a camera attachment that looks like a "gun stock". 

The cover for the Revised Footprints Under The Window has a number of guys wearing ammo clips.

If you check out the cover for The Vanishing Thieves (1987) has a guy holding a gun.  There's a gun on Revenge Of The Desert Phantom.

But in The Secret of The Empty Page from the Detective Handbook (Revised Edition), the boys come across a Chief Collig's nephew who has been shot dead while still clutching a revolver, and Frank actually stands next to the suspect, who has a .45 caliber gun on him.  Plus Chief Collig fires his gun in the story.

[MacGyver]

Okay- I forgot about that story from the Detective Handbook- good point.
     And I did notice the ammo clips on the Footprints Under the Window cover- obviously one of those guys must have had a gun to use that ammo with. I tried to make a list of every Hardy Boys cover where I noticed a gun of some sort earlier in this thread- there were a few covers where I didn't necessarily see a gun, but I did see ammo clips. This was one cover in that category. Another one would be #25 in The Hardy Boys Casefiles, The Borderline Case.

[SkyWarp]

Casefiles #15, Page 22
Talks about both Hardy Boys as being expert marksman, but that they both promised their father that they would not carry a gun.  This doesn't say whether they own one or not though. 

[tomswift2002]

Makes sense, since Fenton has his own gun and ammo in the house (since Fenton pulls out the gun in "Time Bomb" in the basement).

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Why was Russia/USSR brought up so much in the Casefiles? It's the only series to do so. The UB and the Adventures series never really mentions it.

[SkyWarp]

Why was Russia/USSR brought up so much in the Casefiles? It's the only series to do so. The UB and the Adventures series never really mentions it.

It has to do with when the series were published as well as their target audiences.  The Casefiles came out during the "end" of the "Cold War".  The UB and Adv series have been published in the past few years and are also targeted toward a younger crowd.  No one cares about Russia anymore (well, until maybe this past year) let alone the younger crowd they are targeting.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

It has to do with when the series were published as well as their target audiences.  The Casefiles came out during the "end" of the "Cold War".  The UB and Adv series have been published in the past few years and are also targeted toward a younger crowd.  No one cares about Russia anymore (well, until maybe this past year) let alone the younger crowd they are targeting.

What was so special about the year 1987? Was that the end of the Cold War?

[tomswift2002]

The Cold War officially ended in 1991 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West Germany, and the division of the USSR into Russia and the many Balkan states that now exist.  Countries like Afghanistan and the Czech Republic were part of the Soviet Union.  Basically the Cold War was the last "war" between the last two Super Powers in the world.  But with the fall of the Soviet Union, the US was left as the only Super Power in the world.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

The Cold War officially ended in 1991 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East and West Germany, and the division of the USSR into Russia and the many Balkan states that now exist.  Countries like Afghanistan and the Czech Republic were part of the Soviet Union.  Basically the Cold War was the last "war" between the last two Super Powers in the world.  But with the fall of the Soviet Union, the US was left as the only Super Power in the world.

Guess that's why the books are written like they're dealing with "fall out" in a sense?

[MacGyver]

Yes- The Hardy Boys Casefiles generally attempted to stay current with the times. And you have to keep in mind that these books were published from 1987 to 1998. So some of the early books definitely deal with Cold War issues. And to clarify, the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989, but the USSR did not officially dissolve until 1991.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Yes- The Hardy Boys Casefiles generally attempted to stay current with the times. And you have to keep in mind that these books were published from 1987 to 1998. So some of the early books definitely deal with Cold War issues. And to clarify, the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989, but the USSR did not officially dissolve until 1991.

They seem more adult than the UB's in what they deal with. Wish they could make a HB series like it.

[tomswift2002]

The Casefiles were aimed at the Grade 7 and higher reading level, where as the UB's and Adventure series were aimed at Grade 3 to 6 reading level.  The Original series never had reading levels given to it till the 1980's when Minstrel took over, but even then Minstrel only had the rights from Night Of The Werewolf onward.  But with the Minstrel copies of the Stratemeyer books (up to The Swamp Monster) if you look on the back of the books you can see that the reading level was, for the majority, between a Grade 5.9 and 9.1 level (and reading grade goes by school grade, so at 5.9 you would basically be expecting someone just entering Grade 6 to be able to understand the book).