fall inside a hole

Tomy/Sears Giant Crane (1970)

First written October 8, 2024

First sold in the United States by Sears in 1970, Tomy produced this large (28 inch tall) operating crane with four motors and five functions that was sold at Sears throughout the early-mid 1970s that was later released in a hand-cranked yellow and black variation. The release shown on this page is an earlier 1970s Sears release.

Giant Crane (1970)

The Sears release of the Giant Crane first appears in the 1970 Sears Christmas Wishbook as catalogue number 54239. It was released in blue "Sears Big Toy Box" packaging and reappears in wishbooks up through 1973. In Japan, Tomy sold the Giant Crane in Sears boxes but with a Jumbo Crane (ジャンボクレーン) sticker over the bottom portion of the box.



Set contents
Quantity
Item
Photo
1 Base
Tower
1 Boom arm and claw
1 Counterweight battery compartment
5 (3 pieces each) Block buildings
1 Hook  
1 Basket

The crane has a large red base and hollow blue support structure. All of the motorized components are housed in the crane's cab section and boom arm, and the controls connect up to the top, so there are no electrical components in the support structure and the crane arm can rotate around and around endlessly.

The boom arm and block and tackle are fairly weighty, and the battery compartment hanging out the rear counterweighs the crane arm and its load. The crane takes four D cells, wired in parallel pairs of two calls in series, and connects through two metal rods that contact strips in the rear of the cab.

The controller connects to the top of the tower with a ten-wire remote cable that basically takes power from the battery compartment through two wires and sends it back up the cable through the other colored pairs to control the four motors. Each pair of buttons controls one of the four motors and each of the motors can be run in either direction at the same time as any other motor(s), meaning you can control all axis of operation at the same time. The top pair rotates the boom arm around, the next pair moves the trolley the block and tackle hangs from, the third pair raises and lowers the block and tackle, and the bottom control either rotates the claw around or opens and closes the jaws. The main arm rotates using a geared turntable in the bottom section that slips into the support tower, letting it spin endlessly. The trolley is moved back and forth on a sprung string that runs around the far end of the arm and back to the main control center. The chain runs down and around a pulley in the top of the claw section and then back up to a winch, forming a block and tackle.

When I got this example of the crane, all of the motors ran fine and all of the geared mechanisms were functioning properly except for the claw. The gearbox is actually built into a metal housing that is screwed into the black plastic housing. The eight tooth pinion gear on the motor shaft had split and needed replacement. This gearbox is designed in such a way that when the motor runs one way it rotates the lower claw mechanism around but running the motor the other way instead drives a cam around that causes the claw to grasp and release under spring tension.

The set also includes five block buildings made up of a plastic top and bottom with a cardboard wall that sits between as well as a bucket and hook piece - the hook is missing from my set.

A copy of the instructions for the crane. The rated weight lift is 3.5oz.

All set up, the crane really is quite large and impressive, towering over most other "town & city" type toys... it really would look grand moving things around in a huge toy city.

Operating the crane is easy, and the remote makes it obvious which button does which function in which direction so pretty soon you can start to operate it without looking down at the controller.

Giant Crane (manual version) (1975)

In 1975 the giant crane was rereleased in a hand-crank version in yellow and black. There are two styles of boxes, one older style more similar to the blue Big Toy Box style shown above and a later style with a spotlit background. This version has a crank at the bottom of a redesigned base with a lever that couples the output to the different moving sections, but the claw is replaced with a static hook and there is no longer a block and tackle. This version was also released in Japan by Tomy as Tomica Jumbo Crane in an updated box.