Thanks Jack for for History of Ray Tijou’s mower shop as I remember going past the mower shop in the seventies and seeing the mower man display and as far as I remember the mower man was a moving display back then.
The History here is that Ray sold the model one Victa Rotomo ,I've looked at Rotomo collectors in Victoria and seen many restored Rotomo mowers in their collections and the first thing I asked after seeing the mowers was do you have any model one Rotomo mowers and the answer was no ,the model one is not believed to have been sold in Victoria as Victa apparently sold approximately 2000 mowers a month ,the model one was first advertised around May 1955 then Ray sold Victa mowers in November 1955 ,it's believed when Ray sold Victa Mowers the numbers already sold were over 10,000.
Just thought this information may be worth mentioning even though the first Rotomo mowers sold by Ray would have had a lot of the same parts used on the model one but most likely the crank cases were of the model two variety.
Just one other fact I had wondered about was the tree being cut down with the Rotomo and then repeated with a later model Victa that in the text says the mower is a 2a but looking at the image the mower is a model 3.
One other mower display I thought I remembered was a moving neon mower sign ,like the Dandy Pig sign if anyone remembers that.
The only other piece of information I have for Victoria not selling the model one is that people always said Victa sold more mowers per year than all the other competitors put together and I thought that would equate to at least 10,000 mowers in 6 months.
The receipt below is 15/9/56 at number 38,952 ,so my 2,000 sold per week may be little on the conservative side.
If i round off to 39,000 divided by 17 months this equals 2294 per month.
I realize this isn't exact as Victa may have sold more mowers in later months than earlier months but just thought I would share what is believed by some Victorian Victa people until proven otherwise.
Always good to hear any more info though to get a more accurate understanding as I know it's difficult to prove one way or the other .
I would think about August 1955 the model 2 crank cases would be out.
7,864 has a model 2 crank case and 6,883 has a model 1 crank case , so somewhere in between would be the start of the model 2 crank cases ,I'm thinking in the 7,000 range and not the 6,000 range.
The production numbers obviously increase in later years, example 2,500 mowers a week in March 1957.
A few lowish numbered model 2 Rotomo mowers I've seen are 17,420 QLD / 10,219 NSW / 23,899 NSW
In Victoria a Rotomo that was found 25 min or 21 km from 440 Burwood Road, Hawthorn Melbourne (Ray Tijou’s mower shop) was number 18.056.(see pics below)
