Domed Easel Back Robot (Linemar / 1950s / Japan / 6 inches)

I remember the day well. I hadn't been collecting vintage robots and ray guns for too long when I got an email from my friend and fellow collector Justin Pinchot. All it said was, "Hey, what's this?" Attached were a couple photos: The first was a super-close up of some fancy lithography, the second was a partial shot of what looked like a dome of some sort. 

I knew exactly what it was, and my heart began beating a little bit faster. See, a few weeks earlier, I'd mentioned to Justin -- who's also a dealer -- that one of the robots at the top of my want list was the Domed Easel Back. I never thought I'd get one, though, because it's a high-end piece that generally costs oodles of dollars. I definitely don't have oodles of dollars today, and at the time, I didn't even have half an oodle to my name. The Domed Easel Back was clearly out of my league; I don't think I could even afford the fantasy of owning one.

And yet there I was, one bright morning, looking at pictures of what could only be the object of my desire. Coming from Justin, it meant one thing: He had one for me, a fact he soon confirmed when I called him up and pressed for details. Things got a little dizzy after that, details remain fuzzy, I don't think I passed out, but honestly, I wouldn't guarantee anything.

Amazingly, the price was more reasonable than I'd have imagined -- for a reason, which I'll get into later -- and I had no problem paying for the toy. A week or so after that first email, I was the proud owner of a dream piece, one of those robots that I'd drooled over since first seeing it in the Sotheby's Matt Wyse catalogue. 

So why all the love? For one thing, it's such a fantastic looking toy with some of the finest lithography ever reproduced on tin. And that helmet! What kind of robot needs a domed helmet? It's not like they breathe oxygen -- or anything else, for that matter. But it looks great, no doubt about it. 

The Domed Easel Back Robot also has a great action. When the button on its remote is pressed, the toy walks forward with a "step-over" motion. That is, it raises and lowers its feet like a real person. Amazing! Astounding! Astonishing! 

Also, for a small tin toy made during the 1950s, technologically impossible. And yet there it is, walking its way into toy collectors' hearts. Maybe it's magic? 

Nope. The robot performs its feat of physicality thanks to that weird contraption attached to its back. You know, the one that looks like a... wait for it... easel? Yep, it's a wire frame that's designed to keep the robot upright every time it raises one of its feet. Not the most elegant solution: I suspect that the designers came up with the general walking mechanism and only later realized how precarious the toy was. They jerry-rigged a solution by attaching the easel, it all seemed to work, and voila, a strange toy was born.

Strange and popular, I should add. The Easel Back went through four iterations over the next few years. One other was battery powered, while two versions of the toy use a wind up mechanism. Only one of the four has a dome, though, and it's by far the rarest of the bunch -- especially in good condition, and especially with it's dome intact.

Which is, of course, why mine was reasonably priced: The dome is fake. They were made out of very, very thin plastic, not unlike what you'd find holding action figures on to their cards. Consequently, they tore easily and often fell off the robot. Good reproductions are difficult to make (requiring a vacuum forming machine), so someone kind of faked it on mine. It's not terrible, but it's definitely not correct.

Not that I mind. The toy itself is in amazing condition, and the roughly repro'd dome is good enough to give a strong impression of what the toy is supposed to look like. Owning it is absolutely a dream come true. The Domed Easel Back remains today one of my all time favorite robots, and one of the true prizes of my collection. 

R-35 Robot (Linemar/Masudaya / 1955 / Japan / 7.5 inches)

Back in the day, toy robots had style. Take, for example, the R-35, a personable little fellow with funky, bulging eyes; a dapper cap; and artfully applied lithographed gears and doo-dads. He's a far cry from today's robots, which often seem to substitute hulking menace for clever design, and imposing weaponry for charming personality.

The R-35, which gets his name from a label lithoed onto his back, abandoned some of the boxy, blocky elements that defined his cousins and replaced them with circles and cylinders. There's a great attention to detail, from those eyes -- which have their blue dot painted on the inside of the glass bulb -- to the strange, tubular ears to the piece of lithoed tin that serves as a mouth. It's definitely a robot that stands out from the pack. The blue and silver finish, which on the head has a bit of a hammer tone to it, doesn't hurt either.

The toy is one of the earlier, battery operated tin robots. In action, it ambles forward and backwards using a pin-walking mechanism, while his arms swing and his eyes light up. Fairly run-of-the-mill for toys from this period, but that doesn't make it any less fun. The robot's controlled by one of the nicest battery packs in the hobby. Whimsical graphics offset the industrial design, making this battery box as fun to display as the robot itself.

When I began collecting, the R-35 was fairly easy to find. It'd pop up on eBay all the time, and often, collectors could choose from two or three ending in a given week. The number of toys floating around today are testament to the R-35's original popularity -- and the fact that so many continue to work speaks to the quality of the Japanese construction.

Anyway, despite the plethora of available robots, I held off on buying one. I'm glad I waited, because eventually my friend Donald Conner -- who I've written about here -- turned me on to a mint-in-box example with a buy-it-now of only a bit more than the toy usually got when selling loose. Now, I'm not one to generally collect boxes, so I ended up selling this one for pretty much what I paid in the first place -- making the robot itself nearly free. I loved the box, and it was sort of a shame that I had to sell it, but the technique of selling off boxes has allowed me to afford many of the robots in my collection. It's about defining priorities, I guess.

Lately, R-35s have become a little less common. They still appear on eBay and dealers' web pages, but not with the frequency that I remember from a few years ago. I wouldn't go so far as to call the toy rare, but the drop is definitely noticeable.

Not much else to say about this great little toy. He's worth adding to any collection, I think -- a fun toy that looks great, too. What's not to love?

Golden Robot (Linemar / 1956 / Japan / 6 inches)

Most of the robots in my collection have faces with fairly blank expressions -- if they have faces at all. Not Golden Robot. He's grinning exactly the way a robot grins when he's either best friends a little boy from the future, or he's about to throw off the shackles of human domination and run free through the woods like a hulking, clanking, grinding, lumbering tree sprite. Regardless, he's one happy robot.

Golden Robot stands out on a crowded shelf. Besides the crazy grin and the golden color for which he's named, the toy has some wonderful, vintage-looking lithographed thing-a-ma-bobs on his chest, back, and head. He's also got the classic, boxy design that makes the lady robots swoon. 

Golden Robot uses a two-button remote control to walk forward or back with light up eyes and swinging arms. He uses yet another modified pin-walking system, this time with wheels that have been shaved down on one side to give him a bobbling motion when he moves. 

There are two versions of the Golden Robot. One, like mine, has indented feet and a slightly wider shoulder width. The other version has a single rectangular slab for feet. I dunno, I like mine more. 

This is a pretty rare toy, and I never honestly expected to own one. This Golden Robot didn't seem any more likely to end up in my collection, especially since it popped up on eBay right after I'd spent an extra-large freelance check on my Alps Door Robot (see earlier post). But the seller listed him as non-working, so I added him to my overloaded watching page just in case. 

See, some robots are non-working because they're broken, but in some cases, the toy is only "broken." Non-working robots often sell for much less money than mint examples, and if it turns out to only be "broken," it's usually not that tough to repair. Then, voila, you've got a nice example of a rare, and otherwise expensive, toy. 

So what's going on with these not-really-broken broken toys? Often, there's a layer of gunk on their gears or motors that causes the parts to stiffen up. Sometimes it's a loose wire in a battery box. Maybe a connection isn't being made between a battery and a terminal. All of these require very little effort to repair, but you'd be surprised how many sellers don't even bother. Granted, it's sometimes something much worse -- a broken gear, a snapped shaft, a loose internal wire, bad rust in the battery compartment. But even these aren't impossible to repair, and a savvy collector can score some amazing deals by taking on a fixer-upper. 

A nice trick: If you put batteries in the toy and the lights work but the legs don't, you know the circuit's complete and it's probably just some stuck gears. A light tap is sometimes all you need to get things working. Or, perhaps, move the legs manually to help free things up. Poking a chopstick up into the body can sometimes nudge gears forward. Whenever you see a listing like, "Eyes light up, but the legs don't move," you know you might be able to bring that toy back to life without too much trouble. 

Anyway, I noticed after a few days that the price on the Golden Robot was still sitting just south of reasonable. At the same time, yet another freelance check arrived in the mail. I can't say I believe in fate, but I'll certainly pretend to when looking for an excuse to buy a robot. So with fate on my side, I decided to place a bid. And wouldn't ya know it, I won.

When I got the toy, I immediately discovered that the battery box had, at some point, been wired incorrectly. An easy fix, since the connections are exposed inside the remote control. No need to open the toy, clip the wires, or do anything that might end in the tragic death of a vintage toy. So I made the repairs and the toy ran perfectly.

Just goes to show, you don't need a bottomless wallet to build an impressive collection. Stay smart, know your toys, keep an eye out for deals, and you'll definitely score some major robots. 

Smoking Robot (Yonezawa / 1963 / Japan / 12.5 inches)

Here we are, the first post. Might as well hit the ground running.

Tremble before the mighty Smoking Robot. Twelve imposing inches of tin, this toy robot walks forward with light-up eyes and an illuminated color wheel that rotates under his dome. But what really sets him apart, what prevents this toy from ever being manufactured today, is the smoke that puffs from his mouth whenever he pauses in his stride. The mechanism that causes the whispy little clouds consists of a small, heated wire that makes contact with a bit of cotton doused in oil. Take that, pesky Safety Commission!

This rare, blue version of the Smoking Robot was released by a Japanese company called Yonezawa in 1961. It also came in an even rarer mint green. A much more common metallic grey version of the toy, which features a metal on/off switch and other small design tweaks, appeared in 1960 under both the Yonezawa and Linemar brands. The Linemar version was named Smoking Spaceman.

Note the "Y" logo for Yonezawa. The Linemar version has the Linemar logo. Duh.

This particular robot is one of my favorites, and I waited a long time before even having a chance to add him to my collection. I love the colors, I love the wonderful, iconic, mid-century design that screams "classic science fiction." This is the kind of robot that any city would be honored to get stomped on by. Thankfully, it's only a foot high and doesn't have much chance of wrecking my toy room.

I consider myself lucky to own a Smoking Robot -- especially a blue one. Especially this blue one. I won it at the Robert Lesser auction last year, and to own a toy with that sort of provenance is just a thrill. I'll talk about Bob Lesser some other time; for now, trust me when I say that he's one of this hobby's original gangsters. Bob was collecting back in the day when people considered these toys nothing more than shiny pieces of junk. He recognized the toys' inherent artistry; more importantly, he thought they were fun. He built up an amazing collection full of all the best toys, including the blue Smoking Robot.

I've admired Bob's taste and vision for a long time, and when he finally put his toys up for auction, I decided that I wouldn't settle for just any ol' piece. I wanted to take home something that was not only at the top of my wish list, but also one that really represented the spirit of Bob's collection. One that positively screamed "vintage tin toy robot." The Smoking Robot was it.

The white plastic on/off switch. Linemar's version has a larger, chrome, tin switch.

But therein sat the problem. The Smoking Robot is, at the best of times, a popular robot -- I'm not the only collector with a good eye! Even the more common grey one, which appears on eBay every couple months, can snag a pretty penny when it's in good condition. If it's boxed, prepare to dig even deeper into your wallet. The blue and green versions... Well, let's just say that they attract the big-time collectors like a spinster aunt attracts cats. If you want one, you might as well figure out which body part you can sell in order to raise the cash.

Now, I'm not a big-time collector, and I sure as heck don't have any extra body parts lying around. So I started saving my money months before the auction. But I knew I needed an edge, and I hoped that some inside information might sharpen my chances. See, the auction listing in the catalog said that this Smoking Spaceman had some paint touch-up inside the battery compartments, which are located in the legs. It also mentioned some touch ups to the outside of the legs and on the robot's shoulders. This is exactly the kind of thing that turns those high-end collectors off of a toy. See, they've got money to spare, and their feeling is that, if they're going to spend piles of cash on a toy, they want that toy to be mint. If not, they'd rather just wait.

But here's the good bit. The good bit is that I'd already taken a close look at this particular toy. It's one of my all-time favorites, so when I visited Bob's house, I gave it a thorough once over. When I went to a display of Bob's toys at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, I gave it a thorough once over. And when I went to the auction preview, I gave it yet another, even more thorough once-over. And sure, okay, I had to listen to Bob scream at me to stop drooling on his toys, but it was worth it -- I knew for a fact that despite what the catalog might say, any touch up on this robot wasn't that big a deal. In fact, if no one had told me, it's a good chance I'd have assumed any such touch ups came from the factory.

(This happened often; the manufacturing process required painting or lithographing the tin before sending it through the punches and presses. Scratches were common and the factories would use dabs of paint to clean up the toys before packaging them and sending them off to distributors. Collectors, generally speaking, don't care about factory touch ups.)

The battery box shows some mild corrosion. However, what looks like rust is in fact brown cardboard and old-school age-grime.

So armed with my super, secret information, I was cautiously optimistic that the catalog description might turn off potential buyers, leaving me to swoop in and grab a toy that I knew was pretty darn close to perfect.

And guess what? That's exactly what happened. On the night of the auction -- actually, the next morning, but that's a story for a different blog post -- I emerged from a fierce battle against... one other bidder. Who only threw in one half-hearted bid, leaving me as the last man standing and the owner of my very own blue Smoking Robot.

The tag from the Robert Lesser auction.

The moral of this story? Never assume that a toy is beyond your reach. Too rare, too expensive, too popular -- dookie! Keep your eyes peeled, do your research, save up some emergency cash, and be patient. The right toy will come along and you'll add that dream robot to your shelf. It's happened to me twice... but that's another story about another robot for another time.