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Research dossier · General Reference

Mr. Machine

mechanical toy

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 1, 2025
Entity authorityQ6928873 ↗
Source-derived summary

Mr. Machine is a once-popular children's mechanical toy originally manufactured by the Ideal Toy Company in 1960.

History

Mr. Machine was designed by Marvin Glass, the toy designer, known for many popular 1960s and 1970s toys. The story goes that Marvin Glass was working so hard at the time, his wife said he was like a machine. Soon after her comment, he invented Mr. Machine. Mr. Machine was a robot-like mechanical man wearing a top hat. The body had a giant windup key at the back.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Mr. Machine” as mechanical toy. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1960—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Machine and mechanical can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as mechanical toy. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 1, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6928873. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1960.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mr. Machine”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mr. Machine primary sources, Mr. Machine archive and Machine research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mr. Machine”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Mr. Machine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.