Joe K. Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 See: http://cgi.ebay.com/1955-Saunders-Swadar-M...1QQcmdZViewItem And, specifically: http://www.whentoyswerefun.com/38593.jpg M.M. has already been Timeline dated to 1955 after being spotted in multiple catalogs (Zweck & Wollenburg, Sears, FAO Schwarz). Nothing new there.What caught my eye in this trade ad was the name "Saunders-Swadar Toy Co." In the past, Saunders Tool & Die Co. was the name usually associated with the manufacture of this robot tractor toy.Just another piece of the puzzle... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fineas J. Whoopie Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Got it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry seven Posted March 22, 2006 Share Posted March 22, 2006 :) Wow, that reads as sort of an apology for the toy not being readily available for holiday delivery. Youch! By the next Christmas, I can imagine that several robot on tractor copies were in the market taking sales from Mike. Oh well, judging by the numbers of surviving examples, Saunders didn't miss that many sales. Or did they? Perhaps unsold Mikes stacked up in warehouses for years from missing the 1955 holiday rush, like desktop computers after the Y2K time had passed. Conjecture! We may never know. -L7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry seven Posted May 13, 2006 Share Posted May 13, 2006 :) A couple of questions: was the Marvelous Mike robot tractor a bump and go, and if so was it earlier than the Directional robot and the Robotrac?, and, were the gear robots that Gernot mentioned earlier than the HiWheel robot? If you take just a quick look, you will also see that the Dux Astroman has very, very visible gears, and could also be considered a gear toy, although they certainly didn't paint each gear a different color to make them a distinctive operating feature, as I would have! -L7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry seven Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 :) How do you like the blue robot depicted on the Marvelous Mike on the cover of that mag.? Is it just an artist's rendering, or did they make a blue Mike? It might be fun to paint one blue and redo the chest decal! -Larry 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe K. Posted July 17, 2006 Author Share Posted July 17, 2006 I've never seen a blue Mike. Don't know why they decided to depict him that way on this catalog cover. Going back to your earlier question, Larry, both Robotrac and Directional came out two years after Marvelous Mike. MM's been sighted in numerous catalogs from 1955. It was a "bump-n-go" toy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ANZinSpace Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 Here are a couple of newspaper ads confirming the 1955 date for Marvelous Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe K. Posted May 18, 2014 Author Share Posted May 18, 2014 . From the December 1955 issue of Popular Science: . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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