ENGINE ROBOT - EARLY VERSIONS - HORIKAWA - JAPAN

Brown tinplate battery operated robot. 9 inches. Walks, gears spin, light flashes in yellow plastic head dome and celluloid eyes, visible engine. A light flashes in the head and illuminates both the yellow plastic dome and plastic eyes. The opening in the chest revealing part of the motor is the "Electronic room".

There are two versions: red-yellow gears and red-green gears.

The red-yellow (left) has one large and one small each in red and yellow laid out in a distinctive diagonal arrangement. This corresponds with the arrangement shown on the box and it is therefore believed that this is the earliest version. This version is, however, still featured in the Horikawa catalog for 1969, so it did not disappear.

Horikawa later switched to (or added) the red and green (right) arrangement of gears but the box art remained the same throughout the long run of this robot. The red-green first appears in the Aldens Christmas Catalog for 1964.