In the recent Playset Magazine it was mentioned that test shots of the Marx Wyatt Earp character figure were done in black, gray and tan beside the cream. They believed that the figures were sold by Bowers, but they were not sure. They did not have a picture of the four figures in the different colors.
Here is two pictures of the the Wyatt Earp character figures in the four colors. While John Bowers may have sold them, these figures were purchased at one of the auctions of the break up of the partnership between John Bowers and Gene Scala who had bought the Marx warehouse when Marx went bankrupt. We know this is a fact as I am the person who bought the box at the auction. This was before John started to sell on his own. I personally like the black version because on the show Wyatt wore black clothes.
The box contain several sets of the figures plus a couple of the Marx Superman figures. The box came a lost box for twenty years. In the 80’s I had a little discount store in Allentown. On Christmas day, someone broke into the store. I was saved from losing the complete inventory due to aYale lock on the door they could not bust. they did crawl in through some broken glass and steal about $300.00 of goods. I closed the store shortly after that and had a bunch of friends helped me pack the items and I stored the remaining inventory in one of the garages behind the house.
I looked for the box with no luck. When I cleaned out the garage to sell the house I found the missing box in a box with other items from the store. One of the friends must have done it and I never thought to look in that box due to be reams of paper. What made this discovery more interesting is the garage had been broken into twice before my cleaning with nothing taken.
You might ask why this picture is not in Playset Magazine, I did contact Rusty Kern to see if he would like a picture. I got a reply from Kathy Kern that Rusty would be in contact. I am still waiting. Just like Laurie did not get a response from Rusty when I had her contact him to inform of him of my operation.
When getting the Wyatt Earp figures together I found that I had a duplicate of the gray version. I will be putting that figure up in the next week for auction on Ebay.
Nice little article. I must say I know how you feel about PM mag lack of response regarding your illness. My sincere and honest inquires went unanswered too.
I have never seen the Black, nor Tan one. Wyatt is one of my favorite characters that marx did. He is in an excellent pose. I own 3 or 4 gray ones. I think they all came from the landfill, they all had dirt on them, like a reddish clay. which reminds me of Georgia Clay, lol.
I cleaned them up pretty good though, and they are mostly in excellent condition. I have seen a cream one on ebay before going for about $35, which I guess is about the going rate for a cream one. It would seem to me the black, and tan might be worth more, since I am assuming they are rarer, although I am not sure of this. I know some people go bonkers over different colors sometimes. I like the black one best as well, however I am not able to tell if the detail is visible on the figure. I also like the Tan (possibly because I never have seen them before).
Did marx keep records on individual figures made ? I am kind of doubting it, but maybe they had to for licensing, and royalty fees. Does anyone know if any of the colored ones ever showed up in any of the playsets, or were they prototypes or something else.
Ed C
The black, tan and gray never showed up in any playset as far as we know. they only appearedwhen the Marx warehouses got sold. Likewise the Jackie Gleason figures never saw light of day until the warehousea were sold
Thanks for posting this Paul. I guess the black and tan were prototypes, which would make them extremely hard to find. Also I had to re enter stuff to post this comment, sorry, I couldn’t comment otherwise. I had to reset my browser yesterday.
Anyway, I am curious Paul, how many of the black, and tan ones did you get in the box you got at the auction. You were also very lucky not to have lost them, lol. Maybe they brought you some good luck and the thieves got scared of those Buntlines, and hightailed it out of there, lol.