Alps Fishing Polar Bear Battery Operated Tin Toy Japan

This battery operated tin toy fishing polar bear was made by the Alps Company in Japan in the 1950s. The Toy has six actions and they all work, except they don’t all work consistently.

The fishing cycle is thus: The bear, with lighted eyes, drops his fishing pole with magnetic lure into the pond, “catches” a fish and raises it while he nods his head forward and backward. He removes the fish with the aid of a synchronized electromagnet in his other paw and drops the tin fish into the basket. The bear then puts his pole back into the pond to get more fish and the action is repeated. The problem with the “fishing” occurs when he raises the rod with fish out of the pond - sometimes the fish falls off of the magnet, but the fishing cycle will continue without the fish. Other times the mechanism that nods his head will jam and the fishing cycle will stop. If you wiggle his head back and forth it will become un-jammed and the fishing cycle will continue. Overall a successful fishing cycle occurs about 1 out of every 4 or 5 attempts.

The toy has fur that has darkened with age and particles of it will fall out if the fur is rubbed or brushed. In some places the edge of the fur has curled where it is glued to the face, but it is still firmly attached.

The tin parts have some light surface corrosion in places, but the battery box is clean and corrosion free.

We have removed the base of the unit and lubricated all the gears and gear axles of the main mechanism we could reach - this greatly improved the performance and sound of the unit. We also disassembled the switch and cleaned the contacts, which improved the function of the switch and the bear’s actions. When we acquired the bear the fishing line was missing, so we fabricated one out of 9 strand jewelry stringing wire and it seems to work fine.

The Toy is complete with the bear's hat, detachable fish pond, and 3 tin fish. It requires two D batteries to function, but they are not included.