On any recoil starter, there is some way to make it engage with the flywheel and dis-engage when the motor starts or the rope is retracting. That is almost always some sort of automatic mechanism. Not so with the Elgin. You have to push the button down to engage it and let it up to dis-engage and recoil.

Yeah, Elgin’s first attempt at a recoil starter. You would have to admit it certainly was simple. As I was thinking about recoil starters in general this morning, most of them were engineering nightmares. By that, I mean complicated and expensive to manufacture. The green top Mercs with the magnetic pawls were pretty simple, but not inexpensive to make. And you couldn’t rope start it in emergency. The West Bend/Elgin 2hp with the three balls were simple and inexpensive. They even worked sometimes. Probably the prize for success goes to OMC with the oval pulley and plastic pawl. Still being used today.