c.1919 Wolverine, No.104 Sandy Andy Crane in Original Box
This is one of the very earliest and most complex toys produced by Wolverine. It's the No.104 "Sandy Andy Crane" and it's never been used! It's complete with all its original parts including the unopened sand can and sand scoop. It also includes the original box with both *metal edge strips still in place. Only the string has been replaced because the original rotted away. Wolverine's Automatic Sandy Andy Crane was originally available through the Sears and Roebuck catalog for $1.19. I purchased it from the original NJ owner family. For some reason it was never used or assembled until now. It's in excellent condition which is pretty amazing considering that it's nearly 100 years old. I've only found one other example as nice as this one and that was over nine years ago. The toy has 10 parts which are all pressed steel except for the little blue engineer which is tinplate. Assembling isn't difficult, but it can be a little tricky. Once the sand is poured into the hopper it'll run continuously until its emptied. I've included several photos to show how it works. Wolverine cleverly designed their box to fulfill two purposes. The first is a container like any other box. However, once it's opened it could be folded inside out to form a gigantic sand tray. *Two separate 18" green metal strips were provided to clip over the two long box edges. This makes it more sturdy to contain the weight of the toy and sand. It has its original unopened 5½" diameter sand can that contains a little more than one pound of sand. It also has its original scoop. The scoop can connect to the apparatus to prevent it from getting lost, but it's not part of the actual mechanism. The box was printed with Wolverine's trademarked pattern of overlapping colored circles. Complicated instructions and schematics were included on the top panel. Despite the rugged cardboard I doubt their design was intended to last for more than a couple years. This particular box had almost completely disintegrated. Like a puzzle I reconstructed every available part back together again without adding any additional paper or touch-up. As you can see in the photos it had many tears and tears and is extremely brittle. It's still very fragile. Lift it the wrong way and it'll tear. The only way to prevent it from getting torn again was to permanently glue open as the sand tray. I can't guarantee that you won't receive it with a couple new tears, but it's easily repaired. Sold: Jun. 2016
Size: Box (sand tray) 22" x 16" x 3". Toy 13¼" high x 12" x 12".
Price Sold: $ 145
