These five robots make up the most sought-for grouping of robots in the toy collecting world. They were produced by Masayuda (AKA Modern Toys) of Japan between approximately 1957 to 1964. This is the same company that made the first remote-controlled toys, the bus and the car you saw earlier.
As you can see, the all share the same body and four of them, the same head.
We must note that our Machine Man is a flawless repaint. Given that a perfect Machine Man recently sold for $159,000, we can live with it.
Robot 1, nicknamed The Sonic, he runs around madly and screams like a fire truck.
Robot 2, nicknamed Lavender and Robot 3, Machine Man share the same bump-and-go action and run about silently at random.
Machine Man is unusually rare. Only about a dozen are known to exist, and only two boxes are known to have survived. Unlike the other members of Masudaya’s Gang of Five, Machine Man was not available for standard retail purchase. All of the Gang of Five robots are rare, but Machine Man is, by far, the rarest of them all. It was made for one year only, in 1960, and had to be specially ordered from an importer. The other four could be ordered from a catalog, but not Machine Man.
Robot 4 has a fun action. Nicknamed The Target, he comes at you unless you shoot his red dot with the dart gun you see below him. That causes him to flee...but soon to turn and come back at you. He provides similar the game play as the King Zor dinosaur.
Robot 5, the Radicon, is the world's first remote controlled robot. He uses the same mechanism as the bus and car, and is the second most sought of the Gang of Five.
We have a 3D printed reproduction of Diamond Planet, a robot as rare as Machine Man. We did have an opportunity to purchase an authentic model, but...40,000 euro....so....sorry....
The original robot was made in 1962 of thick and strong tinplate. Interesting is the fact that there is a ” battery compartment ” at the back of the robot while the robot is powered by a strong windup / clockwork mechanism. The prototype of this robot shows that it was intended to be battery-operated but the final version was powered with a windup mechanism. Diamond Planet robot is considered to be the biggest windup robot ever made.
A.C. Gilbert's ultimate insane product. An actual atomic radiation lab....for children, released in 1950.
The lab containes a cloud chamber allowing the viewer to watch alpha particles traveling at 12,000 miles per second (19,000,000 m/s), a spinthariscope showing the results of radioactive disintegration on a fluorescent and an electroscope measuring the radioactivity of different substances in the set. Also, of course, a
battery-powered Geiger Counter.
Four glass jars contain natural uranium bearing ore samples (autunite, torbernite, uraninite and carotite).
Gilbert's original promotions claimed that none of the materials could prove dangerous. The instructions encouraged laboratory cleanliness by cautioning users not to break the seals on three of the ore sample jars, for "they tend to flake and crumble and you would run the risk of having radioactive ore spread out in your laboratory. This will raise the level of the "background count", thus impairing the results of experiments by distorting the performance of the Geiger counter.
The Gilbert catalog copy included the reassurance that "All radioactive materials included with the Atomic Energy Lab have been certified as completely safe by Oak-Ridge Laboratories, part of the Atomic Energy Commission."
In 2006, Radar Magazine called the lab set one of "the 10 most dangerous toys of all time, ... exclud[ing] BB guns, slingshots, throwing stars, and anything else actually intended to inflict harm", because of the radioactive material it included. The lab was number 2 on the list; number 1 was lawn darts.
A professional journal published a more-detailed review in 2020 that described the likely radiation exposure as "minimal, about the equivalent to a day’s exposure from the sun", provided that the radioactive samples were not removed from their containers, in compliance with the warnings in the kit instructions. (And we all know how children love to follow instructions.)
The kit failed to sell because of its high price, and not due to any safety concerns at the time, and was soon taken off the market. Fewer than 5000 kits were sold, and the product was only offered in 1950 and 1951. It is known that Columbia University purchased five of these sets for their physics lab.