The above scan is not mine (so my trademark scale silver dollar is missing). Get the scale from the boxes - two and a quarter by one and a half inches (5,7 x 3,8 cm). These ELM figures are obviously sculpted after the Marx figures, Trachodon (a), Hadrosaurus, and Kronosaurus, all of which appeared about 1955. The ELMs are in a hard (and relatively brittle) plastic, and painted by the factory. The cover art looks original, in the sense that it's not copied after Zallinger or Knight. I particularly like seeing Kronosaurus in an unusual pose - out for a little stroll along the shore. The Louis Marx Co. set up ELM in British Hong Kong in the 1950s. The dino figures date from about 1962. Shortly thereafter, some diligent string-pulling in Washington seems to have enabled Marx to label the goods molded and painted in Hong Kong, or molded in the US and sent to Hong Kong for painting, as MARX rather than ELM. But so far as I know, these three dinos were always sold as ELM rather than Marx. However, they've been known to hedge their bets at Marx - take, for example, this little Triumph TR2, with a box marked both MARX and EMPIRE MADE - 
I don't know the date on the Marx Miniature Car. The TR2 - the real one - was in production from 1953 to 1955. English car aficionados know that there was no TR1 (the prototype/showcar was retrospectively named TR1). The TR3 and TR3a were visually almost identical to the TR2, and made until 1961. Marx doesn't seem to have rendered the distinctive front fender line correctly on the model, although the box art has it about right. Anyway, I was more of an MGA fan myself. |