Plastic Figure Showcase: Marx Red Translucent Covered Wagon,we start off with the story behind Marx red wagon. Bill Nevins and I have reviewed our information on the subject to share an interesting tale.
Plastic Figure Showcase: Marx Red Translucent Covered Wagon Marx Wagon
Recently I picked up this Marx reissue wagon. The color is a translucent red. It had been done over 20 years ago. It has an interesting story.
Sy Gruber had a company that sold closeout toys. He had a bunch of boxes for a western playset. According to Bill Nevins the name of the playset was Westward HO. The box has a photo cover. The box depicted MPC figures and accessories. Sy had enough parts as he had bought inventory when MPC and Miner went out of business. One problem he did not have enough wagons.
He looked around and found that Excalibur Hobbies had the Marx covered wagon mold. At this point it gets murky on who authorized to have the mold run. Some say it was Bill Murphy of Excalibur Hobbies. Others say it was not authorized by Bill Murphy. It was run without his permission.
Whatever the case the finished product showed up in the Western HO playset boxes. I was clued on this by a source and started searching for them. I got a group of them up in town 25 miles North of me. One problem some of the boxes had the Marx wagon while others had the MPC wagon. I found enough and quit looking.
Plastic Figure Showcase: Marx Red Translucent Covered Wagon More Information
Bill Nevins had some additional information on the wagons. When Bill Murphy lose his case with Jay Horowitz the assets of Excalibur Hobbies were sold. these assets were bought by Jamie Delson. In the inventory was red wagons. Jamie wholesale them out. One of the people who bought them was Allan Ford. Allan later resold them.
Bill mentioned that the wagons were done in a gray/green and a rich colored red wagons. They are in a obscure playset called Fort Frontier. The rest of the parts are mostly MPC. It is only time Bill has seen these colors. You can check out more at this article from November 2015.
Plastic Figure Showcase: Marx Red Translucent Covered Wagon Final Question
The wagon comes with plastic axles. Does anyone know when that was done?
Mid 70s Comanche Pass sets had the plastic axles.
Back in the 1990s I heard about the Westward Ho sets. While in Indiana on business I stopped into an outlet mall on I75 and the Toy Liquidators had the sets on sale for $5 each. I bought all 20 they had and then asked if they had a box I could use. I proceeded to open each box and take out the wagons (no horses) and got 17 red and 3 gray. Plus each set had some Marx Miners, Trappers & cowboys plus Lido cowboys and Indians both made in orange and I kept them as well. Space was going to be limited on the plane home to Florida so I gave the yellow MPC western town fronts to the now stunned cashiers and told them to sell them for $1 each. I had them throw out the boxes, punch out card stock scenery and maybe a blow molded rock or two. I sold the wagons for $12 each and the Marx reissue figures for .50 cents each and the Lido figures in bags of 20 for $7-8. Tripled my money in a short time. Not big dollars but it was fun.
I bought a few of those Westward Ho sets at that very same Kaybee Toy Liquidators at the I65 Exit 76 outlet mall. I was delighted to get clutches of Marx cowboys in each box, and I have always had a weakness for the Lido figures I enjoyed as a very young boy (I liked the wagons too). This store also sold military sets, with the 54 mm MPC GIs in green and grey, and what I think were Payton recast vehicles in a stiff but sturdy plastic.
yes same store. I meant to say I65
Plastic axles were done in the cereal box cowboy set “Red River Gang”.
OK, so who can fill in the story about Bill Murphy recast Marx wagons that looked so good that collectors complained that their old Marx originals were losing value, forcing him to dumb down his recasts?? And what did he do to distinguish his new from the old?
I think it was a different, more brittle plastic?
No the plastic is no brittle.
I own a few recasts that I would consider “stiffer” or more “brittle” in brown and a flesh color that I believe were produced by Mr. Murphy. We may be getting confused over semantics.
Sounds like: Excalibur hobbies was put out of business by a lawsuit against them based on their re-issuing toys produced from original Marx molds. Am I reading that right? Or is there a great deal more to the story?
Excalibur Hobbies went out of business because he claimed that he did not run a mold that was owned by American Plastic. Jay Horowitz did an lawsuit and it was found that Bill did run and a judgement was issued. This caused Excalibur Hobbies to go out of business as he was not able to pay the bill.
Or is there a great deal more to the story?
Yes, there is. I’ll let Paul get into it.
WAGONS:
Bill’s original run (or perhaps test run) of wagons are almost identical to the wagon found in B&G sets. You would be hard pressed to tell the difference.
Bill was under pressure from collectors (see PFPC) to mark recasts, so that they could not pass as originals. For whatever reason, Bill didn’t want to change the mold, so he compromised by using different colors and plastics.
I clearly recall getting those first run wagons at Schutzen Park from Bill in exchange for an Alamo piece that I had made for him.
wOW .so many little dirty secrets !!!!in these post…
Interesting tales !!!..Wonder what other side may say about their opinion .!?
My thoughts..
best
Actually, Kent that’s not accurate. Bill lost a judgement to Horowitz, not CTS.
TSC ended up with Bill’s inventory from that case.
In point of fact, Bill sued a company that was selling items in their put together playsets that were “missing” (shall we say) from Bill’s warehouse prior to the sale to Delson.
I gave sworn testimony in that case, so I know what I’m talking about.
The company settled that case in Bill’s favor.
There’s a lot more to the tale, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go on a public forum.
thanks. Stad please delete my earlier comment on the matter.
You have to love this hobby, lawsuits, thefts, stealing someone’s wife, fist fights and subterfuge. I mean the rumors alone are priceless.
LOL! !!!
Far more interesting than the latest cake topper flea market find!! Wonder if Peter Fritz was mixed up in any of this??????? Where was Erwin when the purloined wagons emerged?? Stay tuned for more – late at night. 🙂
Peter Fritz was not innvolved in any of this matter.
Uhhhh, was joking about Peter.
And hope about me too.
I was collecting then .not involved in this .too joung x the deals.
Thanks God I do retail x fun and not involved in these minibattles of the so “friendly hobby ” few retailers .Sad tales to stain hobby in my opinion.
Bedt
Delson was able to buy the Excalibur’s inventory because he had backing from Richard Conte. They split the inventory.
And it’s all about boy’s plastic toys. The stories are endless. That’s what makes room trading conversation at OTSN so satisfyingly surreal. Which is why one guy from Australia, who happened to end up in the 5th floor lounge area, turned to me and asked, “Sir, can you tell me – WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?”
Yeah, this hobby is a real hoot.
“Just because we play with toys for 10 year olds doesn’t mean we have to act like them.” Bill Hamilton (RIP)
The wagon mold was stored at one time at a plastic company in Charleton, MA. Cy Gruber had his stuff there as well.
To the best of my knowledge Cy helped himself to the mold and yes a theft more or less occurred.
and of course the wagon and both top molds are among the molds that disappeared along with the ACW caisson and WWII German armor molds.
does anybody know the average price for a single marx figures?
Different figures bring different prices, there are figures that cost over $1,000.00, the 60mm Rin Tin Tin cavalry range between $6.00 and 25.00 a figure depending on the pose, similar prices apply to the revised pose pioneers, while you can usually find the 54mm cowboys, Indians, GI’s, Germans , Japanese for $1.00 to $2.00 a figure, Character figure prices depend on the figure. These are just examples, but it pretty much applies to all the different sets, it’s supply and demand.