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These Marx figures are made of a soft thermoplastic and are very durable. The only common failure mode seems to be that they are chewable. I don't recall them being particularly tasty, but that perhaps says more about my memory than it does about the plastic. The figures first appeared about 1955. There were initially twelve different ones, made in three molds (strictly speaking, there were fourteen figures, but some were duplicates in the "small" mold group). The "large" mold group, forged in the fiery depths of Mold # PL749 
The "medium" mold group, from Mold # PL750 
• Stegosaurus (a) • Ankylosaurus (a) • Pteranodon • The "small" mold group, spit like chocolate bunnies from Mold # PL755 
• Plateosaurus (a), (b) • Sphenacodon • These figures were never painted by the factory. They initially appeared only in gray or light green plastic. At first they were sold individually (the stores had them in bins) or in bagged sets. They started appearing in the famous Marx Play Sets circa 1957. Marx made some of the "large" mold group figures in a metallic green or silver color. These were never sold individually, but might appear, one figure per set, in some Play Sets. Starting about 1958, figures began appearing in brown plastic. There is quite a bit of variation in the exact color of the brown figures, more than is seen in the gray or green ones. About 1959 a new Tyrannosaurus appeared [my designation "Tyrannosaurus (b)"]. He was sold in bins like the earlier figures, or in Play Sets, where he typically appeared along with a specimen of the old Tyrannosaurus (a) figure. The new Tyrannosaurus (b) may initially have had his own mold; the situation is uncertain. About two years after the advent of the new Tyrannosaurus (b), figures appeared from a new mold - The "revised" mold group, Mold # PL977 
• Brontosaurus (b) • Triceratops (b) • Tyrannosaurus (b) • Stegosaurus (b) • These eight "revised" figures were sold in blister packs, or in the Play Sets. Some versions of the blister packs had a pair of cavemen also. Not long after the appearance of these "revised" mold group figures, Mold # PL749 was retired and the old "large" mold group figures (Tyrannosaurus (a), Brontosaurus (a), and Kronosaurus) went permanently out of production. Finally, about 1960-61, appeared the figures in the Second Series - The "second series" mold group, from Mold # PL1083 
• Megatherium • Struthiomimus • Parasaurolophus • Moschops • These figures appeared in Play Sets, or in blister packs labeled "Monsters and Mammals." About this time a new color, tan, was added. Figures of the "medium" and "second series" mold groups can be found in tan, as can, perhaps, the "small" mold group figures as well. For reasons unknown [perhaps a catastrophic asteroid impact? -- Ed.], Marx ceased prehistoric production in 1964. The figures and Play Sets were still available in stores through the mid-late 1960s, so Marx must have had a hefty inventory stockpile. In any event, the original Marx production period for dinos and Play Sets spans the years from 1955 to 1964 only. Production of figures and Play Sets resumed in 1971. The plastic of these later "reissue" figures is different. The texture and - as I have been assured by those with more acute olfactory senses than my own - the characteristic odor of the earlier figures was changed (maybe the taste, too, I imagine, but they still seem to have been chewed-on quite a bit). The new gray and green colors are more uniform (and, in the collector market, much less hot) than the older ones. The molding isn't quite as good, either; surface detail tends to be softer on the reissued figures. So, in sum, we have seen that the Marx prehistoric animal figures can be classified by
Some collector types basically classify these figures by color. Some people are just plain daffy. I plan to say no more about this particular aberration. 
So ... whatever happened to the Louis Marx Company?
Louis Marx had a daughter (who eventually married Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame). Unfortunately she doesn't seem to have been too interested in plastic toys, so when the 78-year-old Louis retired in 1972, he sold the toy company he had founded in 1919 to Quaker Oats (already a power in the toy market via their ownership of Fisher-Price). Quaker Oats didn't do too well with their Marx acquisition, and three years later, they sold it to an English firm, Dunbee-Combex, which became Dunbee-Combex-Marx. They didn't do too well with it, either. Their last year of production was 1978, and they filed for bankruptcy in 1980. American Plastic Equipment of Florida bought the assets of Dunbee-Combex-Marx (or, at least, the ex-Marx portion of the assets) in 1982 and the intellectual rights in 1988. American Plastic Equipment was established in New York in 1971, selling used plastic manufacturing equipment to South American firms. It was incorporated in Florida in 1978, and began to broker or buy used injection molds and the intellectual rights to the products made therefrom. Their big purchases to date were the Marx and Ideal Toy Corp. molds. Marx Toy Corporation, which from all indications is a subsidiary of American Plastics Equipment, was established in Ohio in 1995. Note that except for (i) the similar name, (ii) ownership of some of the old Louis Marx molds, and (iii) their leased showroom suite in the same building which was once Louis Marx's New York City headquarters, the Marx Toy Corporation has no connection at all with Louis Marx & Co. That's not quite the end of the saga. Another manufacturer, MPC, produced a somewhat schizophrenic line of prehistoric figures. Some were original figures of their own, and are rather good. But most of their figures were pirates of Marx figures. The resemblances are sufficiently close that some dealers pandering to the collector market can't reliably distinguish between Marx and MPC figures. A further complication is that the MPC figures were in turn pirated by Winneco Industries and others. There have been attempts by at least one company (not, apparently, the Marx Toy Corporation) to reissue figures made in the original Marx molds. These have not so far achieved any great success. To Site Index EVERYTHING ELSE (TEXT, PHOTOS, CODING, LAYOUT, BANNER, ETC) ON THIS SITE COPYRIGHT © 2002 - 2006 BY ME |