ot only walked forward but backward as well, and in some cases they had a whole host of other functions; maybe a spinning wheel in its head, or ears that moved, or lighted eyes—add lights to anything and kids go crazy.
It was a bit of technology that kids could actually play with and relate to. Prior to that, technology was exclusive to adults with their new fangled washing machines, cars, and freezers. Actually, the very first wireless remote-control toy was a Japanese robot called Radicon Robot. So here you had a pretty big advancement in technology, and it was for a kids’ toy. That’s amazing.
Collectors Weekly: In America, Ideal came out with Robert the Robot in 1954. Was that also a remote-control robot?
Pinchot: Yes, but it was simple and was operated by a hand crank. The toy took batteries, but only to make the eyes light up; the walking and talking action were generated by a hand-cranked wired remote. A lot of different Japanese robots came out after Robert and they improved upon the idea a hundred fold. For example, Masudaya had the Gang of Five, which were large, tin lithographed, skirted robots just like Robert, except they were all tin and fully battery-operated.
Robert was cool, but he was somewhat crude compared to what you had in the Japanese robots. They were much more advanced and much more interesting for kids. If you asked a kid to choose between a plastic Robert the Robot and a tin, lithographed, brightly colored, eyes-lighting, noise-making, bump-and-go action Japanese robot, the Japanese tin robot wins every time.
Collectors Weekly: So when American companies manufactured their own toys they made them out of plastic, but the tin robots they sold as their own products were actually made in Japan?
Pinchot: Yes, that’s exactly right. For instance, Macy’s sold several different varieties of toys, some made of plastic by U.S. manufacturers and others made of tin from Japan. The tin Japanese-made toys were much more popular. But the Americans realized early on that they couldn’t compete with the tin and the batteries. We would produce something in plastic, and you would see it a year or two later in tin lithograph and battery-operated.
Obviously we had access to tin, but the process and labor were too expensive. We simply couldn’t produce battery-operated tin robots for the same price that they could. What the Japanese could retail for $6 here—a really big, impressive robot—would have cost $15-$20 for us to produce. It was easier for U.S. companies to buy from Japan, mark them up, and sell at a profit.
So you had companies like Marx and Cragstan, which was an American company that sold only Japanese stuff, commissioning the Japanese to manufacture U.S. designs. They’d send plans to Japan, have the product made there, and then ship it back. And as we were talking about earlier, sometimes the Japanese went, “Wow, we like that design,” and then they’d produce it for themselves under a different name with Japanese packaging.
What’s funny is that when I was a kid in the late ’60s and early ’70s, nobody wanted the Japanese tin toys anymore. They didn’t like them at all. I thought they were kind of cheesy. I was like, “They break easily. They rust. They’re easy to stomp on.” Even when I started collecting toys, I didn’t want tin litho. I thought it was junk. I wanted Art Deco pressed-steel toys that were American made.
Then, suddenly, there was this big sea change for me, a big paradigm shift. I was like, “Wow, I’ve got to have that.” It wasn’t a cheap toy to me anymore. I got the design, I got the whole impact of it. I understood the value of the design, the rarity, the uniqueness. But I had to evolve into that as a collector. Today, cast-iron and pressed-steel toys are nowhere near as valuable and collectible as battery tin litho toys; a complete reversal from the 1970s and ’80s.
Collectors Weekly: When did you get into collecting tin-lithographed toy robots?
Pinchot: Around 1991, when I was 28 and selling antiques at the Rose Bowl Flea Market, someone brought over a robot to show me. I just lost my mind. It wa