1959 - LITTLE BLACK BOX by Poynter Products, Inc. - First and Second Versions - Made In Japan

Here are 2 versions of a novelty item called Little Black Box by Poynter Products Inc., made in Japan 1959. It is basically a battery operated black box that turns itself off when activated, which are referred to as Box 1 (First Version) and Box 2 (Second Version). There is a Box 3 version (No Photo) which I will talk about below the post. The third photo seen above gives detail information between the 2 versions. The name of the Japanese toy company is unknown but they were produced in Japan.

The Little Black Box operates on two C size batteries. Box 1 is slightly larger than Box 2. Both boxes have the creepy looking green hand that comes out of the top trap door to turn itself off. The green hand in Box 1 is adjustable while the green hand in Box 2 is not adjustable. Both boxes have a black thick paper cut out cover that sits over the top of the motor and gear housing when you lift up the trap door to manually look inside. The cut out patterns are different in the center on both black paper covers. There is metal rocking extension arm that sticks out at the base that creates the rocking motion on both boxes as seen on the second photo above. Both Boxes come packaged in the same identical orange, black and white storage box and small instruction sheet as seen in the fourth photo above. The storage box dimensions are 4 and 5/8 inches Length by 3 and 1/2 inches Width by 4 and 3/4 inches Height. The instruction sheet dimensions are 3 inches wide by 4 and 1/4 inches long. The Box 3 version that mentioned earlier, also comes in the same identical storage box and instruction sheet as pictured above, which I will further talk about towards the end of this post.

The Little Black Box is activated when the metal toggle lever is moved to the ON position, causing the box to go into a rocking motion, giving the impression that something inside the box is trying to get out that goes on for about 10 seconds. Suddenly, the top trap door slowly begins to open as a green hand comes out, pushing the toggle lever towards the OFF position as the green hand quickly springs back inside the black box as the trap door quickly closes, bringing the operation of the Little Black Box to a complete stop, ready to be activated again.

Both versions have a hard rigid black plastic box that slides over a metal base platform that holds the motor. It uses sliding friction to hold the two sections together. There are no screws or metal tabs holding the plastic box section on to the metal base platform section. But because the Little Black Box uses sliding friction, extra care is needed when removing and replacing these two sections together. If done unevenly and/or forcibly it could crack the hard rigid plastic black box itself which is under stress to begin with. Metal wins over hard rigid plastic every time. Never carry the black box around by the box itself, for fear that the bottom metal base platform could suddenly slip out completely from underneath the bottom of plastic black box section itself which could damage the metal gears and wiring components that are attached metal base platform, which is why one should always carry the black box with the metal base platform sitting on the palm of ones hand to keep it from doing just that, especially when the batteries are inserted into metal base platform, which adds additional weight to the metal base platform itself.

When inserting and removing the two C size batteries from the bottom of the metal base platform itself, I find the best way to do it safely and carefully is to lay the black box side ways exposing the bottom side of the metal base platform to access the battery door cover. When you open the battery door cover, you will find two different metal brass battery contact patterns inside the battery compartment. The dot pattern is the positive end and the ring pattern is the negative end, to indicate which ends of the two C size batteries go in first as seen on the instruction sheet diagram in the second photo above. The battery door itself has 2 battery contact brass metal strips attached to it. Always make sure to hold the toggle lever in place in the OFF position when inserting or removing the batteries from the unit to prevent an unwanted activation of the Little Black Box which could damage the inner workings of the unit.

The metal toggle levers on these 2 Little Black Box versions are different in their set-up. The toggle lever on Box 1, is attached to a raised ON/OFF metal face plate, which in turn is directly attached to the plastic black box itself. The toggle lever has an angled position of 45 degrees when set to either the ON or OFF position. There are 2 wire ends that are directly connected to the motor attached on to the metal base platform. The other 2 wire ends run directly inside the plastic black box, with one wire end attached directly underneath the metal ON/OFF face plate and other wire end connected underneath the metal lever. There is some wire slack between motor and black plastic box in case one wishes to separate the sections, which have to be done carefully without pulling apart any of the 2 wire connections from either ends. The toggle lever will lock in place when set to the ON position to activate Box 1 but it has free play movement when lever is set to the OFF position. Because of this free play movement, one must always hold toggle lever in the OFF position when inserting or removing the batteries from the unit to prevent an unwanted activation of the unit which could damage the motor on Box 1 version. Also, when carrying the Box 1 version around with the batteries still inside the unit, care must be taken to prevent the toggle lever from flopping over to the ON position, triggering an unwanted activation. The toggle lever on the Box 2 version, is mounted directly to the motor on the metal base platform which eliminated the 2 wire connections that were originally connected directly from the motor to the lever and face plate inside of the Box 1 version. This change allowed the new set up of the plastic black box section to be removed from the metal base platform section to separate completely apart without any fear of pulling any wires apart like in the Box 1 version. The Box 2 metal toggle lever has an angle position of 60 degrees when set to the ON position and an angle position of 80 degrees when set to the OFF position which has a more controlled activation movement, unlike the Box 1 version toggle lever and it does not lock in place. But it's still wise to hold the toggle lever on Box 2 version to the OFF position when installing or moving batteries to prevent an unwanted activation which could damage the motor.

A Box 2 version appeared on the original television series, "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", from 1964 to 1968 on an episode called, "The Finny Foot Affair ", that aired during the first season on December 1st 1964, starring a young Kurt Russell who displays the Little Black Box in action to Robert Vaughn's Napoleon Solo character at the beginning of ACT II called," Lickety Split ", and is shown again in action about midway of ACT III called, " The Little Black Box ", for those of you fans of the series who have the dvd set where you can view the Little Black Box in action. This is where I first saw the Little Black Box on this episode on my dvd set that caught my interest, not knowing whether or not if it was just a prop for the show or if an actual toy did exit of it.

The Little Black Box was the precursor of the battery operated mechanical coin bank called, 'The Thing From The Addams Family", made by Poynter Products Inc., released in 1964. The manufacturer modified the toggle lever section to have a coin slot holder stand where one would place a coin in slide ways which would automatically activate the motor in the The Thing Coin Box, creating the rocking motion with a green hand, which looked more like a flipper hand so it could grab the coin better, would slowly come out of the top trap door, grabbing the coin as the top trap door closed and dropping it into a coin storage container attached to the raised metal base platform inside the The Thing Coin Box. The coins are removed by opening the extra door cover next to the battery door cover, located underneath The Thing Coin Box's metal base platform. The gears for The Thing Coin Box were made out of white plastic and not metal when it was first released in 1964. Between the Little Black Box and The Thing Coin Box, the Little Black Box is the rarer box of the two. And of the 3 versions of the Little Black Box, Box 1 is the rarer and harder one to find because it was the original one came out first, followed by Box 2 and Box 3, as far as I know.

The Little Black Box had up to 3 versions produced as far as I believe for now, between 1959 to 1964, unless someone has additional information which I would gladly like to know or post. The first version of the Little Black Box was the Box 1 pictured above next to Box 2, with the toggle lever attached to an ON/OFF metal face plate which was attached to the top of the plastic black box itself with 2 wires directly connected inside the plastic black box to its metal face plate and metal lever with no JAPAN stamped print on the metal base platform. The green hand was adjustable. The second release version was the Box 2 pictured above next to Box 1, where the manufacturers' decided to mount the toggle metal lever directly on to the motor of it's metal base platform and forming a rectangular slot opening on the top front of the black plastic box itself with the ON/OFF print molded into black plastic to allow the toggle lever to freely separate from the black plastic box itself from it's motor metal base platform, eliminating the 2 wires of the first version that connected directly inside the black plastic box. The Box 2 has the JAPAN stamped print on the bottom of the metal base platform. The green hand was not adjustable. Finally, the Box 3 version (No Photo) that I mentioned above, is basically the same the Box 2 version, but with some minor changes, The manufacturer decided to paint the inside of the metal base platform and the battery box in black, which were never done to the Box 1 or Box 2 versions. The Box 3 version was also stamped with the words "POYNTER PRODUCTS INC. PATENT PENDING MADE IN JAPAN" while another same identical one didn't not. The battery door cover was now stamped with a negative marking and positive marking on the outside of the battery door cover to indicate which ends of the two C size batteries lined up inside the door cover. The green hand was adjustable. Over all, this tells me that some of these changes on the early versions of the Little Black Boxes weren't always consistent by the manufacturer.

I'm guessing that 1964 was probably the last year that the Poynter Products Inc. stopped producing the early Little Black Box versions (Metal Gears, Lever and Base) from 1959 to 1964. The manufacturer later began to produce the Little Black Box all in plastic. I had read information regarding a 1980's Little Black Box version on You Tube that it was cosmetically different from the early 1959 to 1964 versions. First, the green hand was replaced with a regular flesh toned looking hand which looked less scarier than the creepy looking green hand. The toggle lever now had a red plastic ball attached on the top end of it's plastic lever (Early Levers were Metal) with an over sized red plastic ON/OFF face plate. The gears and platform base were now made entirely out of plastic (Not Metal Gears and Base like Early Versions) with a new storage box and instruction sheet design.

The only person who would know more of the variations of the Little Black Box as well as the The Thing Coin Bank Box versions would be Mr. Don Poynter himself or someone who has his original records of the products and changes that were made to various versions. It would be nice if someone would put together all this record information on a website or book so we can all see how all these Poynter Products evolved during their production run.

Please feel free to post any additional information and thank you all for your interest.