PIRATES: Marx (of Miami) Captain Blood and The Buccaneers Set #4794 (1992) - Pt 1

My series on Pirate toys is kind of winding down and this Marx playset coverage may be it for a while until I either a) get more stuff in or b) feel like messing with it! 😀

Now, I'm not sure the original Marx company ever made a Pirate playset. They made the figures but I do not recall ships or anything else in that theme. That however was rectified by Marx Toys of Miami, FL. This company was re-issuing playsets under the Marx name in the late 1980's and through much of the 1990's and filling the boxes with anything they could get their hands on. That being said, this set is a delightful assortment of recasts from the original Marx tooling as well as old MPC tooling and odds-&-ends from other non-descript manufacturers. When put all together though it is one heckuva nice set! 

I actually got this set from the UK and even with the postage (which wasn't nearly as high as I would have expected) it came in for about the same price a set would have cost here Stateside. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Set Contents:

-Playmat 24"x30"

-Captain Blood 'Ship's Log' (aka - story book, instruction manual, and mini catalog)

-Large Brown repo MPC Pirate ship (in Toy Street Packaging)

-Small Brown repo MPC Pirate ship (in Toy Street Packaging)

-Appliques and printed cutouts for the ships (in Toy Street Packaging)

-Two small repo MPC rowboats with oars, lanterns, gangplanks

-Four palm trees (reMarx)

-Four ferns (reMarx)

-Rev War style cannon, repo MPC

-Hill with cave repo MPC

-Large Alligator (reMarx)

-Wilderness Stockade (reMarx)

-One bag of ten reMarx 60mm Pirates

-24 repo MPC Red Coats

-Two sprues repo MPC accessories for Red Coats

-4 sprues repo MPC Pirates w/accessories (blue, red, white, silver - total 16 figures)

-Large treasure chest (unk mfr)

-Five sprues of hard plastic baubles (aka 'treasure')

-Bronze colored sprue of Pirate money (doubloons, pieces of eight, etc), 43 coins total

-Silver gray colored sprue of Pirate money (doubloons, pieces of eight, etc), 34 coins total

24" (60.96cm) x 30" (76.20cm)

The contents minus the playmat

Interesting: This set is even dated to 20 May 1992 and is the 751st one produced! I don't know how many were ultimately made but it's kind neat to know.

Baubles for treasure chest 

PIRATES: MPC 60mm Pirate Ringhands - Pt 1

A lot of the pirate toys we've been covering the past couple of months have been from MPC and back in September their ringhands were featured but without any of the accessories. Today, we'll start a mini-series of these ringhands to show what they look like all decked out with gear. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Here's an entire sprue of accessories to show what would've come with the figures. Unfortunately, if you want them to have firearms then you need to get the pistols or rifles from the Rev War or Colonial or Frontier sets. This is a repo set includes:

-2-piece treasure chest

-2 hats

-Cat-o-nine tails (whip)

-Pick

-Shovel

-Flag

-Belaying pin

-2 swords

The flag is - to me - a bit awkward to pose. My favorite is the last pose, the one I call The Captain. Of course, it can always be used on the ships.

The caps I have all fit okay, but like any of the ringhand headgear, can be problematic. The whip is a nice addition

This is a larger sword than what is on the sprue and may have been a part of the accessories that came with the Red Coats

PIRATES: Excalibur Hobbies Pirate Fleet - Pt 1

The now defunct Excalibur Hobbies had produced a number of recasts like this Pirate Ship fleet. I vaguely remember Excalibur from back in the day but I have no idea what happened to them. There are a couple of facebook groups labeled for Excalibur Hobbies but they're insubstantial. Upon Googling it, a link to a website provided leads nowhere. All that being said, occasionally MIB examples can still be found out there.

This set has:

-Large Pirate Ship

-Small Pirate Ship

-2 Rowboats with oars, gangplank, and lanterns

-Sprue of MPC ringhand Pirates with accessories in green - a HTF color nowadays

I'll Post this set in several installments. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

When I took this photo I cheated! Only four lanterns come with the set but I culled a couple more from my other sets to outfit the boats.

PIRATES: Original MPC Carded 60mm Pirate Set

I had a string of good luck in regards to finding original MPC pirate toys and here was an example of how the hits just kept comin' - an original carded set of MPC PIRATES! The card included five figures in four poses (all the poses MPC made were represented) as well as a small sprue of accessories. As there are no hats included in my example I wonder if those too would have been a part of this set? Enjoy! Opa Fritz