1957 Snapper Question for Snapper Dealer or Collector Owner

Hi,

I'm looking for information on a lawnmower made by Snapper (McDonough Power Equip) in 1957.

I used a Snapper that my Dad bought new in 1957 at a Snapper dealer in Millerton New York. (Brewers Mowers).

I would like to find one of these that I can restore. I would like to find the model # and pictures of one to aid in my search.

Were you a Snapper Dealer in the 50's? If so...maybe you still have the old dealer catalogues kicking around?

Or...are you a Snapper collector and perhaps own one of these mowers?

Here's a description: It was a 21" side-discharge walk-behind and was self propelled; although the design of the deck and the self-propelled mechanism bears little resemblance to the HiVac models that Snapper has made for so many years.

This model used the Briggs 81702 motor and had the "transmission" mounted on the deck behind the engine and was driven by an under the deck belt. There were extension "driveshafts" with pulleys extending left and right...the pulleys had belts connected to the rear wheels. The operator had a handle that would control the tension of the belts. Walk speed was controlled only by the RPM of the engine.

Who remembers this model? Can someone post a picture or supply the model #? Or; does anyone know the location of such a mower than I could purchase?

Thanks for reading....Chuck

I found a close match in the Snapper 21GSP, which is from the 50's or 60's. The link says it's the first Model snapper, and yes, it looks nothing like the later Hi-Vac models, very square.

Here's the picture
Lawnmower Photos

Hi there Mad-Mike....

Yep; you scored. You should know that I've been looking off and on for years...and I have never seen a picture or mention of that Snapper. Until now!

The picture that you link to is rather small...but it does indeed show the "transmission" behind the engine. You can see the drive-shafts and the belts that connect to the wheels.

The engine on that Snapper is newer than the one my Dad had. I suppose the model might have been made for a few years and/or with a variety of engines.

Thanks for helping me! I appreciate your time and effort!

Chuck

From what I was able to find last night looking for the picture, Snapper made that mower (and several variants thereof) well into the 60's until the Hi-Vacs came along about 67' or so, may have been in production over 10 years.

Mike....

You're good at searching. Better than I am; that's for sure. Last night I searched Google for the model number and came up with a bunch of links for owners manuals for sale...but that's about it.

If you can post links here to the information that you uncovered I would appreciate it.

The person who owns the Snapper in the picture says that he owns most every Snapper model from the get go up through the 70's! Wow! A Snapper collector! You hear about LawnBoy collectors all the time...but I've never heard of anyone collecting Snappers until now.

Thanks again, Chuck

Funny you mention the manuals, some of the manuals were for multiple models, and some of them only listed variants of this model, and others included the Hi-Vac in the list if I recall.

The one manual on e-bay is a 1963, which would still be around the time that they used the older B&S style engines on these. The one in the picture is late 60's, which puts it as a model that came out just before or around the time of the Hi-Vac. I can tell by the engine - it has the gold B&S decals, and the one looks like a easy-spin starting decal, like seen on pretty much all the late 60's and 70's Hi-Vac mowers.

Another thing I'm going off of is how Snapper has pretty much held onto the same designs for years. One service manual I saw was for this mower (21G and 21GSP) AND all the "Snappin' Turtle" mowers from the 50's. After this they came out with the Hi-Vac, which is still around now, the only things that really change are the amount of features, and the engines, and the deck material, but the same general design is still around. Their RER series is still in production in one form or another after all these years, that's got to be the longest lived riding mower design series ever.