Mars Platters

In 1958 Russia and the USA were in a race to space! Sputnik had soared the previous October and the USA would soon respond with Vanguard 1. Meanwhile, competition in the toy world was just as fierce. Wham-O had released their new fleet of flying discs: the Pluto Platter, the Sailing Satellite, and two versions of Flying Saucers. How would competition respond? Premier Products Co. in Brooklyn, NY took the easiest way possible: they rolled out a direct copy of the Pluto Platter design…even daring to call it the Mars Platter! —Phil Kennedy

Premier Products Co., based in Brooklyn, New York, during the late 1950s and early 1960s, manufactured a variety of toys, primarily focusing on plastic model kits (cars, ships, weapons), doll accessories, and simple plastic toys like toy guns.

Premier Products Co. was located at: 124 Stuyvesant Avenue, Brooklyn 21, N.Y. —Sami Loukko

Premier Products Mars Platter 1st Style (PMP1)

However, there were a couple of slight differences. At 9˝ in diameter Mars Platters are slightly smaller than a 9.31˝ Pluto Platter. And there are a couple of unintended goofs on the First Style Premier Mars Platters (PMP1): first, the planet names engraved on top are in the same order…but they run clockwise on the Pluto Platter and counter-clockwise on the Mars Platter. Secondly, Wham-O had removed "American Trends," Fred Morrison's company name, from the bottom of the Pluto Platter with a raised bar, an "esker," and engraved their name on the esker. Seeing this, Premier engraved the bottom of the Mars Platter with their own name on an esker…apparently without thinking about why Wham-O had used an esker! —Phil Kennedy

Date Introduced: 1958

American Trends and Wham-O's Pluto Platters bottom scripts.

Premier Products Mars Platter 2nd Style (PMP2)

The release of the 1959 Second Style Premier Mars Platters (PMP2) corrected these "errors." The esker was eliminated and the order of the planet names was reversed to match the Pluto Platter. Order was restored! —Phil Kennedy

When the order of the planets on the top was restored, the alteration work was done very carelessly. The letters are very different in appearance and size, compare the letters S, U and A for example. The letters of the planets are raised in a very special way. The upper part of the letters is raised from the surface only slightly while the lower part of the letter is clearly more raised. The script on the bottom of the disc has a similar difference in the raised letters, but now the letters on the top are raised more than the letters on the bottom. —Sami Loukko

Date Introduced: 1959

Premier Products Mars Platter 3rd Style (PMP3)

By 1960 Premier noticed that the Pluto Platter had acquired an additional name—Frisbee—and the name was selling! Direct imitation had worked so far, so why not keep up with Wham-O's market leadership by using the name themselves? Thus the Third Style Premier Mars Platter (PMP3) has the name "Frisbee" emblazoned on the bottom in 3/4˝ high capital letters…and it was also added to the header cards of the packaging. —Phil Kennedy

Date Introduced: 1960

What Premier either didn't realize (or didn't care to acknowledge?) was that Wham-O had obtained a trademark on the name "Frisbee" in 1959 in order to protect its use by competitors, and their lawyers came knocking with a lawsuit…which Wham-O won! As a result, Premier's production immediately ceased and the mold was sent to Wham-O. —Phil Kennedy

Wham-O Mars Platter 1st Style (WMP1)

It was an opportunity that Wham-O didn't waste. They tooled off Premier's information from the bottom of the Mars Platter and replaced it with their own. They released this First Style Wham-O Mars Platter (WMP1) for a short while. —Phil Kennedy

No window panes (sometimes called "Spokes") on the observation dome. It was replaced by a large nipple. In the bottom script, the last two lines were changed to: WHAM-O MFG. CO. SAN GABRIEL. CALIF PAT. PEND. The bottom two lines are written in the same font as each other.—Sami Loukko

Date Introduced: 1965

Wham-O Mars Platter 2nd Style (WMP2)

By 1965 Wham-O was adding their newly developed Flight Rings to all of their disc molds (old and new) and the WMP2 was born.  This last style of Mars Platter was sold packaged separately by Wham-O and also included in Horseshoe Sets in the late 1960s. —Phil Kennedy

Date Introduced: 1966

Irwin Toys Mars Platter 1st Style (ITMP1)

The Mars Platter mold was then moved to Toronto, Canada to Irwin Toys, probably in 1967. No changes were made to the mold. The Mars Platter was manufactured in Canada until 1971. —Sami Loukko

Before the age of free trade agreements, it was common for US companies to avoid tariffs by licensing Canadian companies to manufacture and distribute their products. Buddy L, a US toy truck company, licensed Li'l Beaver Toys and Trucks Ltd. in Toronto to make and sell their products in Canada. Li'l Beaver was located at 145 Front Street East, and was a subsidiary of Irwin Toy Ltd. located about 3 miles away at 43 Hanna Avenue in Toronto.

Li'l Beaver had licenses to produce a number of other popular US toys, including Gumby and Barrel of Monkeys. Around July 1967, Wham-O licensed Li'l Beaver to make and market the Hula Hoop in Canada. When Wham-O wanted to distribute Frisbees in Canada in 1967, 1968 or 1969, the business again went to Li'l Beaver. There is anecdotal evidence that Mini Frisbees were made in the US and shipped to Canada for the application of labels and packaging in the same 4-disc type US package with English and French printing on the backing card. That may be true, but the package says, "Made and Printed in Canada" (in English and French) with the Li'l Beaver address as 43 Hanna Avenue, the location of Irwin Toy. It's unknown why the Irwin name wasn't on the package, but the same Irwin Toy address was used on the bottom of Li'l Beaver's Lakeside Toys-licensed Barrel of Monkeys. Other Li'l Beaver toys used the 145 Front Street East address, as did catalogs of Li'l Beaver's Buddy L trucks. —Bill Storm

Date Introduced: 1967

The last picture shows a special package. The package contains the ITMP1, the cardboard is made by Irwin Toys and packaging insert is made by Wham-O in the USA. 

Regular-O Wham-O Frisbee® Mold 18 Toss Games T.M. Script

Wham-O changed the Mars Platter to Regular mold 18. It can be best identified by the script on the bottom. Pay particular attention to line 5. The beginning of line 5 has been added © 1966. The beginning of line 5 and line 6 are written in a font that only slightly differs from the font of lines 2-4. But the rest of line 5 is written in the same font as line 5 on the Irwin Toys Mars Platter. If you look very closely, you will notice that line 5 has been moved 0.5 cm to the right. Line 4 has been added back from the original Pluto Platter script with the text -Experiment!. Line six was corrected to read as in other Regulars: U.S. PAT. NO. 3,359,678. The most easily recognizable difference in the script, however, is the first line. All other Regular molds also have the text -INVENT GAMES on the first line. It also uses the same font as the Mars Platters. —Sami Loukko

There is also a T.M. script on the bottom of the disc. The second line of the script begins with a dash.  Since the T.M. script is a Toss Games script and not a Sport Games script, it confirms the year of manufacture for us as 1971. Because the production of Sport Games Regulars did not begin until 1972. There are 9 Inner and 26 outer flying rings. —Sami Loukko

Whether the mold change was made in Canada or the USA is currently impossible to know. Mold 18 Regular is extremely rare and has not been found in the package. —Sami Loukko

Date Introduced: 1971

Regular Wham-O Frisbee® Mold 19 Toss Games T.M. Script

In the same year of 1971, Wham-O changed the 18 Mold Regular to the 19 Mold Regular. That is why 18 Mold Regulars are hard to find. The following changes were made to the mold: The number of flying rings on the front changed. The 18 mold had 9 inner and 26 outer flying rings while the 19 mold has 10 inner and 25 outer flying rings. The following changes were made to the bottom script: The first line remained the same. This is the second Regular mold that does not have -INVENT GAMES at the end of the line. The word EXPERIMENT! was moved from the third line to its own line. This makes this script a unique 7-line script.The font in lines 2-7 was changed to the same in all of them. Naturally, mold number 18 was replaced with mold number 19. There is no dash on the second line in the T.M. script. —Sami Loukko

19 Mold Regulars have been found in Toss Games Regular 1970 packages and have the 1971 packaging insert. —Sami Loukko

Date Introduced: 1971

Regular Wham-O® Frisbee® Mold 19 Sport Games T.M. Script

In 1972, Wham-O changed the mold once again. Two changes were made to the mold. The registered trademark ® was added after the word Wham-O on the front. At the bottom, the T.M. script was changed from Toss Games script to Sport Games script. So the second line of text For Toy Flying Saucers for Toss Games was replaced with the text For Flying Saucers Used In Sport Games.—Sami Loukko

Date Introduced: 1972

Regular Frisbee® Mold 19 Laurels™ Sport Games T.M. Script

The last change to the Mars Platter mold was in 1973. Wham-O changed the front of all Regular Frisbees. The top reads REGULAR FRISEE and the bottom features the Wham-O splash, a small registered trademark ®, Laurels, and the ™ symbol. A small change was made to the bottom of mold number 19. In number one, the diagonal line and the base of the number are slightly shorter. In addition, in number 9, the link is slightly larger.—Sami Loukko

Overall, mold 19 is a very common mold. The last version of the mold has been found in the Horseshoe game 1978 package, for example.—Sami Loukko

Date Introduced: 1973

The picture shows different versions of mold 19 numbers.

Many manufacturers in the 1950s and 1960s jumped on the bandwagon and produced a short-lived, poorly-selling, dead-end Flying disc product. The Mars Platter, while born in infamy by flagrantly imitating the Pluto Platter, led a rich existence through its various iterations. It's a history worth telling...and appreciating! —Phil Kennedy and Sami Loukko