A Brief History of Vintage Tin Robot Manufacturers

Tin toy robots became very popular after the end of World War II. Most of these toys were produced in Japan with several companies leading the charge. I will focus on two of the more well known companies here and discuss how their histories are intertwined.

Horikawa The Horikawa Company was one of the most active makers of battery operated toys in Japan. The company sold hundreds of different tin toys such as rockets, space stations and many different robots. Many collectors of vintage tin robots are familiar with the Horikawa name and their "SH" logo, but many people don't realize that Horikawa was actually a wholesaler, not the actual manufacturer.

Most of the tin toys that Horikawa sold were made by the Metal House Company, based in Tokyo. Metal House is one of the few original Janpanese robot toy makers to still be in business. It is a family owned business that was started before World War II and they still make tin robot toys today, many of which are limited-edition collectors items.

Marumiya/Metal House The company known as Metal House was founded in 1943 and was originally named Marumiya. They started out doing subcontract work for the very active Japanese toy companies such as Horikawa, Nomura, and Yonezawa. They produced most of the vintage tin robots that were sold by these companies during the "boom period" right after the end of WWII.

Many popular toys made by the Marumiya company and sold by others. The "Zoomer Robot" was a huge success in the 1950s for the Nomura toy company. Yonezawa sold the popular "Mr. Robot" and "Mr. Mercury" in the United States (under the Cragstan and Marx Toys brand names). Horikawa had many successfully toys produced by Marumiya such as "Machine Robot", "Attacking Martian", and "Smoking Spaceman". And there were many variations of robot toys based on "Robby the Robot" from the movie "Forbidden Planet". This 1956 movie introduced the intriguing robot character to the world and the Japanese toy companies worked overtime to produce as many different variations as they could of this popular robot character.

The 1980s were a difficult time for many of the Japanese tin toy companies. Several factors worked against them such as more stringent safety regulations for toys, major price competition from other countries and the changing tastes in kids toys that was being fueled by television (mostly cartoons marketing new toys to kids). These factors all led to a major downturn in demand for tin toys and most of the companies that relied on tin toys went out of business.

Horikawa held on longer than most companies, but finally went out of business in the late 1980s. Some of Horikawa's designs were brought over to Metal House, which was established in 1989 to carry on the production of tin toys. The box for the "Star Strider" toy lists both the Horikawa and Metal House names. It is credited as being the last all-tin toy robot design from Horikawa and it is still being produced today!

Metal House is still carrying on the tradition of Japanese tin toy robots. They regularly produce new designs that appeal to collectors everywhere. They are proud of their past and relish their place in history while looking ahead to the future.

About The Author Mike Francis is an avid fan of vintage tin robots.