Quaker Oats stopped the production of the playsets at the beginning of the 1980s. Mike Yankoskie was foreman of the Assembly Department from 1947 to 1980. Between 19, Marx made hundreds of different sets. Marx expanded its playset line in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Color allowed for confrontational groups, for example, cowboys and Indians. The ability to use plastic led to the creation of a new type of playset that included hundreds of pieces. The use of injection molding allowed the mass-production of figures and accessories. In 1947, Marx created a plastics department at its Glen Dale, West Virginia factory. They were sold as boxed sets.ĭuring and immediately after World War II, metal for toys was in short supply. They consisted of a metal building, for example, a barn, metal accessories, and the cars. The earliest Marx playsets were made in the 1930s and 1940s. Louis Marx died in 1982 at the age of 85. Eventually, most action figure prototypes and playsets were sold to Chuck Saults and a few to Gene Sacala. Jay Horowitz’s American Plastic Equipment purchased the Marx toy assets.
By 1980, Dumbee-Combex Marx closed the Glen Dale, West Virginia plant and filed for bankruptcy. In early 1976, Dunbee-Combex Marx, a British conglomerate, bought the remaining American and English Marx operations. In 1976, Quaker Oats closed the plants in Erie and Girard. Also, Quaker Oats made a decision not to involve Marx in the growing electronic toy market. Quaker Oats expected a synergy to develop between the two companies. Quaker Oats owned Fisher-Price at the time. In 1972, Marx sold his company to Quaker Oats and retired at age 76.
Growing labor costs made it difficult to compete with cheap Japanese imports. Toys produced in Japan were marked under the Linemar brand. Marx started producing some of its toys in Japan in the mid-1950s. In January 1946, Fortune Magazine dubbed Louis Marx “The Toy King,” a title reconfirmed by Time Magazine in 1955.
The Girard plant was acquired in 1934 via the purchase of the Girard Model Works, a producer of toy trains.īy 1950s, Marx was the largest toy manufacturer in the world. Marx’s revenues grew during the Depression as the company established factories in Girard and Erie, Pennsylvania, Glen Dale, West Virginia, and Swansea Wales in England. Although some earlier toys were sold under the Marx brand, they were made by outside manufacturers. Louis and David Marx were millionaires by 1922. Marx identified six key qualities for a successful toy-comprehensibility, familiarity, play value, skill, sturdiness, and surprise. More than eight million of each were sold within two years. The company’s first toys used former Strauss molds to produce the Alabama Coon Jigger and Zippo the Climbing Monkey toys. These wonderfully sculpted models really need to be seen in person to be able to appreciate the fine detail and charm.In 1919, brothers Louis and David Marx, who previously worked for Ferdinand Strauss, founded Louis Marx and Company to produce quality toys at affordable prices. Truly, it would have been "A whole world in a box". Why the idea never took off is a mystery, as it definitely was a unique and exciting new concept in playsets. After the beautifully designed pieces above were created, a handful of even more detailed prototypes were made, and samples of those were made apparently in a very small number.
#Marx playsets movie#
A variety of prototypes were hand-made, including a firehouse, barn, hospital, movie theater, supermarket, school, gas station, church, skyscraper (just like the Empire State building), houses, trees, and more, even a miniature Louis Marx & Company toy factory! Carved from acetate plastic, then painted to appear similar to what the final product would appear as, each was inscribed with the date and weight for possible production. It would include buildings, houses, scenery and accessories, each having small pegs underneath to be placed however one wanted on a decorated peg-board type base.
In the very early 1950's, a new idea was being developed by Marx Toys.
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