Playing With Dino's (6)

Here's some modern era toy dino's using the set-up for the Marx toys. We now have a small problem in regards to dino size vs. trees. The modern era dino's from Safari Ltd, PNSO, Collect A, etc., are all much larger than the vintage stuff and dwarf the Marx, Toy Street, or modern era Chinese aquarium decoration Palm trees. There are taller Palm's available but they're pricey and for any diorama requiring many trees, they get to be quite pricey. Another option is to forego that whole tropical look and opt for various Evergreens which come in larger sizes for abit less than Palm trees. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Playing With Dino's (2)

Here we have a group of Cavemen ambushing a Moschops - dinner will be at 5, wear your tux LOL Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Playing With Dino's (1)

Soooo, now that you have a collection of dinosaur's, whaddya do with 'em? Play of course! Here's how I did my play time. I grabbed my trusty landscaped board that I've used for everything from Little Green Army Men to Castle and Knights set-ups. I set up the Marx three-piece terrain group towards the back, plopped down a whole bunch of Palm trees, ferns, lichen, etc., and brought out the dinosaur's and camera. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

This space was the setting for this past year's Christmas train layout

The trees are Marx, Toy Street, and generic Chinese aquarium decorations.

After posting pics of the set on my fb groups it seems that people are divided as to what their favorite Marx dinosaurs are: muted pastels or bright colors. It really all boils down to what they played with  as kids. I prefer the earlier muted colors because that's what I had as a kid. Other guys love the brightly colored dino's because they were their childhood toys

That Ankylosaurus is in deep kimchee (aka, he's in trouble!)

Basically the same set-up with the earlier colors

uh-oh, outnumbered! T-Rex gonna eat good tonight - at least, any T-Rex that survives the battle! The Ankylosaurus tail is a powerful weapon.

Marx Original and Revised Brontosaurus

As promised, should I come up with any new info on the Marx dinosaur series, I would post that here. Back on December 8th of last year when I posted notes about the revised vs. original Brontosaurus, I only had the original to go by...

...or so I thought. After digging out the Dinosaur playset, there was a nice revised Brontosaurus in the box! Enjoy! Opa Fritz

(L)  Revised Bronto with small holes under feeet (R) Original Bronto with large holes under the feet

Marx Prehistoric Dinosaur Playset #4208

Well, it's time to more-or-less put this project to bed. After covering all the Marx prehistoric sculpts that I'm aware of, it's time to at least show one of their playsets. Dinosaur collecting for me came it fits and spurts, having bought odds-&-ends years ago and then letting the whole thing rest until recently. Besides this Prehistoric Dinosaur playset, all I ever acquired was a Flitstones set, a New Marx Flintsones set (Ruby Edition), and a couple of Empire of North Carolina sets. And now proces have gotten so ridiculously high, it doesn't appear as if the set collection will grow any.

On to the set. I had bought two of these at one time and both were incomplete. After selling one off many years ago I finally decided to make a complete set after starting this series on dinosaurs. To that end I've been buying dinosaurs and trees, and ferns to 'flesh-out' the set. So here it is. The set is from 1978 - not long before Marx finally went out of business. This set also intoduced the "butterscotch" tan Cavemen, and the three-piece terrain group from previous playsets was changed to gray with a "rippled pond" water decal. The set has garishly bright dinosaurs. My set is missing the booklet which now commands premium prices. It is also misisng the little clips that hold the three-piece terrain group together. Whether or not my particular sample is an accurate representation of the original set due to all those extra pieces I had to buy, is a question best left for the experts. Overall it's a nice set, and being common, is still fairly easy to latch on to at a reasonable price.

I'll be posting any updates to the Marx prehistoric line as they come along, as well as some diorama shots from time to time. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

To be honest I prefer the mint green, light gray colors of the earlier releases. The later brown is also a nice color - especially for the Woolly Mammoth or Smilodon. Those are the ones I had as a kid and they look less nightmarishly bright!

As several of these are fillers I bought to make a complete set, some of the colors - like the green Brontosaurus and Pteranodon are incorrect for this particular set.

Earlier pond decals were a featureless solid blue

Vintage Dino Profiles: Marx Moschops

Well finally we've reached the end of the line for Marx dinosaurs and prehistoric animals. We're not done with Marx, just the critters. I still have to cover their cavemen and perhaps tie-up a loose end or two. 

The last creature from Mold Group PL-1083, the Second Series Mold Group, is the Moschops (MOS-cops, meaning: calf face) is not a dinosaur but rather a synapsid herbivore living during the Middle Permian (Guadalupian) epoch of the Paleozoic era, ca265-260mil years ago and roamed around what is now South Africa. In our series of Marx dinosaurs we have already covered one other synapsid: the Dimetrodon. Synapsids apparently were the most prolific land animals of their time. Theory suggests that because of their size and bulk - 8.9'L (2.7m) - they may have lived partially in water the way that Hippopotamuses do.

The Marx Moschops comes in at far less substatntial 2 7/8" (7.30cm) L x 1 5/8" (4.12cm) H. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Vintage Dino Profiles: Marx Styracosaurus

Well, I've said it before - I get easily distracted. I put off doing the blog so I can start in again trying to sell stuff on fleaBay and the fb groups. I haven'd done any selling since the COVID lockdowns started back in March of last year. A lot of my tattered/torn/broken pieces of trains are actually being given away to the train guys who just have to pay postage. Those scratch-&-dent specials are good for repainting, modifying, parts donors etc. However, I personally don't mess with engines or rolling stock preferring to work instead with structures, as you've seen with my Plasticville mods for the Edge of Town micro-layout.

The Styracosaurus (spiked lizard) was a herbivorous ceratopsian (plant eating beaked dino) living during the Cretaceous period about 75.5-75mil years ago. It was a fairly large dino coming in at 18' (5.5m) and was found in a vast plain in Alberta, Canada and Montana, USA. It was a contemporary of the predator Albertosaurus but because of its size and fierce spikes a full grown Styracosaurus wouldn't have been in as much danger as the juveniles.

The Marx version measures 3 1/4" (8.25cm) L x 1 3/8" (3.49cm) H. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Vintage Dino Profiles: Marx Struthiomimus

Gosh, at the rate I'm going here on the blog I may even finish this Marx dino series this year!! LOL Wellll, since the last update I did manage to take down the Christmas train set-up and some of the outside Christmas decorations, but the tree is still up (can you guess it's a fake tree?). 'Took it down' - doesn't necessarily mean put everything away! Yeah, things happen at a snail's pace around here, just too busy to mess with things.

The Struthiomimus (STRUTH-ee-oh-MEEM-us: meaning Ostrich mimic) was a relatively small-ish dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous in North America (Wyoming and Canada) around 76-74mil years ago. In size it ranged anywhere from 14'-19' (4.3m - 5.8m) long depending on the specific species and apparently was so abundant that it may be considered an herbivore/omnivore but not a pure carnivore, but it looks like that is still being debated. Our Marx version measures 3 1/4" (8.25cm) L x 2 1/4" (5.71cm) H. Enjoy! Opa Fritz