Forget James Bond, real-life spies in the early 1900s were sneaking around with gadgets that make your iPhone look like a paperweight. We're talking secret cameras hidden in buttons, poison coins, and guns disguised as umbrellas.
These were the OG masters of misdirection, suiting up in trench coats and trilbies while hiding cameras in cigarettes and phones inside shoe soles. In an era before GPS, AirTags, and Google, they were decoding messages with invisible ink and using pigeons as literal Wi-Fi.
This slideshow dives into the slick, sneaky, and seriously clever gadgets that made early 20th-century spies the ultimate undercover operators. It's part history, part heist movie, all very, very cool. Whether you're a Cold War junkie, a gadget geek, or just someone who’s ever wanted a briefcase that does more than hold papers, this one’s for you. Let the cloak and dagger games begin.
1
Cigarette Case Camera
Looked like an ordinary cigarette case but concealed a miniature camera inside.
2
Lipstick Pistol ("The Kiss of Death")
A single-shot 4.5mm pistol disguised as lipstick, used by KGB operatives.
3
Dead Drop Spike
A hollow spike used to hide messages or items, buried in the ground for later retrieval.
4
Hollow Coins
Coins that opened to hide microfilm or poison pills.
5
Exploding Rats
Fake rats filled with explosives meant to be placed near boilers or machinery.
6
Microdot Camera
Used to shrink full documents to a dot-sized image for covert transmission.
7
Fountain Pen Gun
A working pen that could fire a small-caliber bullet.
8
Pigeon Camera
Tiny automatic cameras strapped to pigeons for aerial reconnaissance during WWI and WWII.
9
Buttonhole Camera
A tiny camera hidden behind a coat button, often used for surveillance.
10
Shoe Phone (Predecessor to Maxwell Smart’s)
A working telephone built into a shoe (used during the Cold War by Soviet and Western agents).
11
Briefcase Gun
A submachine gun hidden inside a briefcase with a trigger built into the handle.
12
Pipe Camera
A working smoking pipe with a hidden camera inside.
13
Poison-Tipped Umbrella ("Bulgarian Umbrella")
An umbrella modified to inject ricin toxin through a hidden pneumatic mechanism.
14
Compartmented Playing Cards
Standard playing cards that could be peeled apart to reveal maps or secret writing.
15
Insectothopter
A CIA-developed robotic dragonfly meant for aerial surveillance (1960s–70s).
