OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums The History Forum Video & Image Gallery History Pictures COLLECT-O-MATIC - Boy Using Lawnmower - c1959

Hello ODK history lovers
This is a favourite image held in the Museum Victoria collection.
It is titled Boy Using Lawnmower, Black Rock, Victoria, 28 August, 1959.



This is a professionally taken photograph by the Laurie Richards Studio,
one of Melbourne’s premier commercial photographic studios in the day.

This is a wonderful image in its composition and subject matter.
This is a late 1950s Collect-O-Matic powered by a Victa 125cc engine …
clear proof that Victa were ‘secretly’ supplying other mower makers
in the late 1950s.

The image, for me, depicts two key features of the Collect-O-Matic.
The first: simple to use -even a child can use it.
[Depicting women and children using lawnmowers was typical for the era.]

The second feature was the mower’s namesake – the
Collect-O-Matic was a vacuum cleaner for the lawn …
it automatically collected clippings!

This is a composed but not a staged photo.
Note the grass on the inside of the RF wheel
[high-res image in Part Two].

Let me think … who else was making a high-arch rear-catcher
lawnmower in Australia in the 1950s? Hmm … no one!

To be continued …

PART TWO - the Photograph

This photograph is well worth a close-examination.

Many thanks for Museum Victoria for making
this image publically available ...



https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1912557