Great old machine; congratulations on having it. The decals are in superb condition!

I cut a lot of grass with that old girl...the first lawn was maybe half an acre, but later we moved, around 1977, and he then had a 3 acre lawn, 1 acre was mine to cut with this mower, did that until 1982, when he bought a Snapper push mower. I still have the Snapper, but the original engine didn't hold up. I later put a Tecumseh on it, and it has since died too. The deck on the Snapper is still perfect...just needs an engine.

First mower I used was VERY similar to the one behind the pony on the home page of this forum..... Except the handle which had been broken and replaced with 2" water pipe for the main shaft and Tee'd to 1" water pipe handles.
Sure wish I had a pony, because it needed one!

Ah, yes. Reminds me of the days when 2 to 3.5 was the horsepower range. In fact, I'm thinking that my Dad's first power mower was a 1 1/2HP Western Auto Wizard - in about 1952.

I have a few more old mowers, some barn finds, some that I picked up over the years, that I will be posting later on...one is VERY old...has a 2 horse 2 cycle Clinton on it...sometimes it will start, sometimes not. It was under the last house I bought back in 1994.

Our first power mower was a 24" Montgomery Ward with a 2-1/2 HP Clinton.
Horses were so much stronger then!

Nice pic, Snuffy! Thanks for sharing it.

I wish we hadn't thrown out the mower I used as a kid. I'd like to have it now just for nostalgia.

Sadly I learned how to cut my lawn on a cruddy craftsman/Murry/toro from Walmart or similar store. So those are long gone.

My first mower At my first home (I'm 30 and purchased my first home in 2005, so we're not talking that long ago!) was a snapper with a 5hp Briggs motor. It was a bear to start and the mower weighed a ton but I think it could have mowed down smallish trees if given the chance!

Now I have a Honda HRX217HXA and I plan to use it till I cant mow any longer hopefully. We shall see!

Old post here but I just found it. The first mower I used was my grandparents old old push reel mower, probably from the '30s or so. Really wish I still had it. First powered mower was a Sears craftsman back in the early '80s. Saw lots of snappers being used around town, they looked so cool, so big and powerful. My first snapper, later in the '80s when I was about 10 or 11, was a 19" pusher from maybe 1980. When my wife and I bought our first house in '98 I bought a new snapper self propelled with a 5hp briggs. Always worked great but I kept it garaged and maintained. Sold it in 2010 and started collecting old vintage snappers. I have 12 now. Briggs, Tecumseh and wisconsin robin engines. One 2cycle, one BBC and all but one self propelled.

I have a similar story. I started mowing in 1975 when I was 8. We had 6 acres. From then until 1988 my dad and I would mow the whole thing with two 19" Toro Whirlwinds. It would take about a week and then we would start over again. It was good exercise for me growing up and it also helped my dad with his Diabetes. I started mowing with a 1968 Toro 19" Whirlwind model 18213. It lasted a total of 17 years. As of last year I had two small parts remaining from that original mower....the nameplate from the handles and the throttle control knob (plus the original owner's manual). I searched across the country and from five or six different machines I built an identical mower from scratch. That model was a one-year-only and designed for economy. No control cable on the handles and the air cleaner is the same as on Rupp mini-bikes. Very unique. There is also a story behind the green grass deflector. My dad and I went down to the local Toro dealer to get a new deflector. He had no red ones, only green. I learned years later that in 1971, Toro made the Fiesta, which was their only green mower. That green deflector was on our Toro for all the years that I mowed with it, so I naturally wanted to reproduce the look. The only change I made was in cutting down and repainting a steel commercial deflector so that there would be no more concerns about plastic breaking. This mower includes an NOS carburetor, so it starts with just one pull every time. It was a pleasure to build and it's even more of a pleasure to use every week. It's like going back in time over 40 years! :)