WHEEL-A-GEAR ROBOT - TAIYO - JAPAN

Tin and plastic battery op robot with complex pulley driven visible gears in the chest. Walks with spinning gears and flashing lights. The eyes pan up and down. (the eyes are mounted on a horizontal shaft running from left to right, that pivots up and down by way of a connecting lever to one of the arms.)

Plastic arms, legs and feet. Though not visible in the photo there is a long metal antenna at the back. The Wheel-A-Gear is the first of the two Taiyo robots. Versions are known with and without lights in the head and the dome - they can either have a head and dome light, or no light at all.

It appears in the Aldens catalog for 1967. See also Blink-A-Gear (which has first been sighted in Gamble Aldens Christmas 1969 Catalog.

Note: a sales receipt dated 12-25.1965 gives the possibility of an earlier origin.