Modern Toys – Giant Machine Man

Every robot comes with its own story. This robot has a special story but… its also a special robot. There is a Lot to tell about this Legend so here we go:

* ( in this “reconstruction” , fictive names are used 🙂 !!

Imagine, you go to an auction with your friends and normally you go out for dinner first together. You and your friend, lets call them
Nat and Sleve show up too early and miss the other 5 friends ( Lets call them the other gang of five ). The 5 others have to wait LONG for their dinner to show up, have to wait LONG for the waitress to add up the invoice and you and your friend ( Nat and Sleve ) are early at the auction house where a special item is sold, An Original Masudaya Machine Man. Not just a robot but the ROBOT of ROBOTS.

The robot came from a Hollywood California Estate but was stored Locally in West Allis USA and ended up at auction there.
The 2 in question “grabbed” the robot before the others showed up at the auction house… way too late, the robot was auctioned and sold.

Nat and Sleve decided to sell the robot and I came in contact with them, if I remember correctly just when I came back from a ski vacation somewhere at the beginning of April 2011. I talked with Nat on the phone then about the robot. WOW, just the idea that I could TALK to somebody who had an original Machine Man in his hands was awesome… what are the odds of talking to somebody with such a robot in hands…. 🙂

The robot was for sale but there were, lets say, some bumps to take. First the robot had some issues and thats an understatement. Then the price… although its not a perfect Machine Man, its an original one. We talked, emailed, talked, emailed and phoned.. but we could not find an agreement, not on the price and not on the way to get the robot here. flying the robot in personally was also an option we talked about.  Shipping this fragile robot to the other end of the world is a risk. In short, there were too many bumps to take. We could not agree and the 2 owners decided to see what to do and try to sell the robot, there were ENOUGH buyers and I can imagine why, How many times in life do you have to buy an original Machine Man.

2 months later ( we kept in contact ) we tried again to find an agreement but again we could not agree. Then again, 2 months later just before I went to Italy and France, we talked again and were able to find a solution. we agreed on the price, payment and shipping method and the deal was done.

I went on vacation with some mixed feelings. I made a payment in front and I had 4 weeks to think about this robot, this Machine Man.
First the worry if it would ever arrive. My heart told me the deal was ok and the sellers were trusted 100 %. I can not tell why but
thats a sort of feeling you have from the start… OR its ok, or its not… nothing can change that feeling. Ok, when I got back home from my vacation in France, payment was done, fedex info received and 48 hours hours later, my “best friends” from FedEx stopped at my office with a box that contained the legend.

So, after all those years of collecting, but maybe more important, creating 2 Machine Man`s Myself out of A Lavender, I finally had the REAL thing in hands, An Original Machine Man, the 16th known example on this planet !!………….WOW !!!

Masudaya`s Machine Man was build in 1962 and shares the exact body and most of the litho with Lavender Robot. The robot was ordered by a USA importer for a special client so the robot did never go through the major importer channels. I think we would call this robot a “Limited Edition” these days. The robot never showed up in any catalog. Train, Lavender, Target and Radicon all showed up
in catalogs but Machine Man never. This proves the fact that Machine Man was made as a special order and that is why the robot is so scarce these days. Its estimated that only 12 dozen ( 144 units ) were ever produced for this special USA client. Considering this its still a miracle that 16 Robots seems to have survived
all those years. Don’t forget Machine Man was just a childs toy and is now 50 years old !

There are 15 known Machine Man Robots known on this planet. This should be number 16. Funny detail…. The robot was discovered in 1997, not earlier. A collector contacted other collectors and told them he found a Lavender Robot in RED with the words: MACHINE MAN printed in the center. Till that moment the Gang of Five was known as the Gang of FOUR ! Giant Machine Man still had to be discovered then and was found / discovered in 1997.

The condition of this robot is… well let me say, something to talk and think about. The first time you see this robot you think immediately
that a leaking battery caused the damage but that is not the case. I wished the robot was as clear as the batterycompartment itself.
It looks like something leaked on the robot an acid or something like that. Most of the robots parts were affected and touching the robot resulted in wiping of litho, it just fell off, I had to think seriously what to do. Normally i would NEVER have bought this robot if I had NOT the expertise to restore him again and bring him back into his former glory. It took me almost 2 years to invest and think about what to do with this robot.

I decided to take the whole robot apart and inspect every part of the robot closely. Trying to clean and see what is left. The whole robot was affected from the inside and this leaved me with with nothing else than trying to resque the good parts and restore the rest of the robot. I replaced some of the parts that were affected too much by the accid, most of te side panels, an arm, the head were all replaced by original gang member parts. The mechanism and bottom were ok and could be re-used. Together with Jean Pierre I worked for over a year to restore all the parts and restore all the litho on the robot, the inner parts, the mechanism, it all was restored.

The result however is amazing. The robot has been restored back into its former glory. All the the parts are original gang member parts and most of it is still original Machine Man Parts. This exclusive work took more than 2 years in total to complete, not to mention the hours spent into this robot but it was worth all at the end.

The condition of this robot is fully restored, near mint and all original condition. The robot has been brought back into its former glory, works fine and strong. An unique piece of history: Giant Machine Man, made by Modern Toys / Masudaya and restored in the Netherlands in the year 2011-2013.

If you want to have further information about this robot, the process and the backgrounds, than contact me on my regular email.
I added some pictures of the restored parts to give you an idea about the process.

DISPLAY ONLY.

For further information:  boogo.nl@gmail.com