Mobile Atomic Cannon
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| Mobile Atomic Cannon |
Perhaps thee holy grail of all TimMee military toys is the #303 Mobile Atomic Cannon. It was introduced to the toy industry by John Baumgartner in the summer of 1962 and was featured at the New York Toy Fair the following year. The window display boxed set included twelve rockets with Atomic war-heads, twelve 60mm U.S. soldiers and one American flag and stand. It could fire six rockets one at a time or in a rapid fire succession from the elevating barrel using the nylon lever located just below the rear of the 270° rotating turret. The rocket themselves (2" in length) were fed through a magazine atop the turret and could be propelled up to 8 feet with a little practice. The hard plastic chassis rested on four metal axles, each with two rubber tires on either side for a total of 16. It should be noted that the barrel, rocket magazine and turret are each comprised of individual parts that were glued together at the factory. In total, the Mobile Atomic Cannon was comprised of a whopping 34 parts. Essentially it was a fully assembled model kit.
The production run only lasted about a year; which may have been due to either high manufacturing costs and/or lackluster sales. Because of this, the Mobile Atomic Cannon, complete and in mint condition, can fetch some very lofty prices, if you're lucky enough to find one. The original retail price was only $2.98.
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| A star is born |
Photos courtesy of Ebay
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| Display |
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| Display box window |
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| Trade Ad (c.1963) |
Quick Facts
• Manufacturer: Tim Mee Toys
• Item Number: 303
• Production: 1964
• Dimensions: 9¾" L x 4¼" W x 5" H (6¼" H w/barrel fully elevated)
• Scale: 1/24 (approx.)
• Colors: army green
5 comments:
I think its safe to say that we'll never see a reissue of this fine set.
Pretty much. Although the whereabouts of the the MAC tooling is unknown...if it still exists at all.
..no doubt a re-issue of this would sell like hot cakes....:)...
Thirty four hand-assembled parts! The Marx Towed 155mm "Long Tom" mold found its way to Old Mexico and is available as a non-firing recast...
I hope one day the‘ll find the mold to this amazing piece of toy making! If the Long Tom was found and the Marx Mobile Cannon Truck thing was found, I hope that so can this. Maybe it will resurface one day, could be in someone’s basement, a warehouse, or maybe it’s destroyed or heavily damaged. Safe to say for now that the mold is lost media.
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