At the East Coast Show when I was looking at Francis Turner’s tables, I spotted the above item Captain Kidd and the Pirates. I could tell that this card was a prototype by the way it was made it was painted and handed drawn. What was interesting the card had a hand painted Captain Kidd! I asked Francis if he would take it out so I could photograph it. Francis said yes and was kind enough to let me photograph it.
The blister card is divided into two sections. One section has Captain Kidd, cannon and a pirate. The lower section has more pirates.
The upper section has the Marx Revolutionary War cannon with Captain Kidd and the pirate. Knowing Marx’s propensity to reused previous produced molds. I feel that Marx would used the Revolutionary cannon instead of making a new cannon like a deck gun. Also in closer inspection of the Captain Kidd figure is hand painted. If this set had gone to production it would have Captain Kidd in red clothes.
The bottom part of the blister card shows it would have had the remaining seven pirates from the mold of eight figures. The use of painted pirates implies that they may have been planning to do use the Warriors of the World figures. Francis and I flipped the set over and found a year date of 1966.
The question of why it was not made could have been a number of reasons. First the price of making the blister card could have been too high. Second when it was shown to their major clients they could have passed on it. Third it was pushed off the schedule for something else. Sadly we will never know.
Francis told me he had someone come up to him at the show and offer him a thousand dollars for the Captain Kidd and the Pirates. Francis turned him down, the person came back with an offer of $1500.00, which Francis also turned down.
Francis has decided to keep it and place it in the Marx Museum so everyone can see might have been set.
Maybe I’m just projecting my preferences onto others, but after watching Errol Flynn in “Captain Blood” and “The Sea Hawk”, and Yul Brenner in “The Buccaneer”, and reading “Treasure Island”, I would have though everybody was fascinated with pirates, and the Captain Kidd set would have been a best-seller for Marx, especially in that colorful blister card.
In any event, I don’t have $2000 in my budget to offer Francis Turner (since he’s already turned down offers of $1000 and $1500, respectively. But in 1966, I still would have been excited to buy the Captain Kidd set in my local Woolworth’s.
Thanks for all the info, Paul.
Very nice,we all know Marx put out a mind boggling amount of toys, maybe some very small toy companies would have been really happy just to market the Marx prototype items Marx turned down ?
Why the Marx WOW figures have the base bottom-or base color as skin or pink, that is typical of the German made ones by HEIMO or early in Germany by Marx!?
Erwin
I saw that the figures were possible the Marx Germany version of the pirates. I figure that the figures were laying around and used over the Hong Kong version. At one of the Marx warehouse auctions, I purchase a box with the Masterpiece union in them. With the date of 1966 the production had ended in Germany and they would have used the Warriors of the World figures instead.
Good point admin, make sense .
Another question.Is the face of captain Kidd that of Louis.? Some times he portray himself in figures characters.
Erwin
In this case, I would say no. Captain Kidd is one of historical figures Marx did like Custer. The Louie Marx figures of him as Napoleon etc. you can see it is Louie. Captain Kidd does not have his nose.
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing this information and photos. I always loved those pirates. One of the aspects that I have always found interesting is the exact manner in which figures were displayed for sale. In this item I find it strange that all of the pirates in the bottom blister cavity of the card are facing into the card, the opposite of what I would expect. The customer sees their rear ends. I know these figures well enough to know that they did not all get turned around while in there. I assume they were placed in the blister side into the cavity before the card was attached, but why so they would display less attractively?
Brian N
Yes it stupid how the figures were put in. why we will never know.
Can anyone tell me if they have ever seen or heard of the Marx 54mm pirates re-issued? I have an old Hong Kong set of them in painted hard plastic. A collector I know once had an original group of these in white soft plastic – these were original test shots I suppose, for a playset which was never produced. They were great figures and the soft plastic ones were higher quality – slightly larger, more rounded and better detailed than the painted Hong Kong versions.
Cloned copied in hard plastic only as cake topper of the wow in 54mm I had seen.never see any reissued my self
Erwin
Are you talking about the original 60mm pirates of 54mm. The 60mm pirates were copied too many times to count. reissues of the 60mm pirates showed up from Mexico, so there might be two sets of molds.
The 8 poses WOW were cloned down to 54 mm and done in to hard plastic cake toppers in the late 80’s ,sold in clear bag.HK.no to be confused by cloned exact size derivate from Marx mold.
A copied, bad done of the 54 mm scale treasure island set was also done for same purpose but not in all poses.Also in HK same era around!
yES;I think there two sets or may be up to 3 if follow the Heimo history as reported .The Mexico WOW recast only 7 poses, the ones reissues in 8 poses various times in URRS and them Russia later.
The downsized HK 8 poses WOW cloned poses were taken probably from a downsize mold done by Germany, I have 2 and next to original you can see difference in size and slight pose. Complete new mold from original Marx was done; again more data is on Charamore history with three different figures showing the size difference.
The set done in HK was sold painted in hard plastic ,same as the one from 13 poses original 54 mm cloned in HK but less quality that is most probably the ones TD has .The first HK sets were sold in window box ,few years after appear in bag wasted mold at party supply stores, not distributed by Wilton.In late 90′ 6 poses small bag of the 13 original set 54 mm scale original appear this time made in china and more wasted bad quality as cake topper too. I will think remain of HK cloned mold used by Chinese then. I wish the 54 mm would ever be reissue as is one of my missing links collection in Marx sets.
Yes;I think there two sets or may be up to 3 if follow the Heimo history as reported .The Mexico WOW recast only 7 poses, the ones reissues in 8 poses various times in URRS and them Russia later.
The downsized HK 8 poses WOW cloned poses were taken probably from a downsize mold done by Germany, I have 2 and next to original you can see difference in size and slight pose. Complete new mold from original Marx was done; again more data is on Charamore history with three different figures showing the size difference.
The set done in HK was sold painted in hard plastic ,same as the one from 13 poses original 54 mm cloned in HK but less quality that is most probably the ones TD has .The first HK sets were sold in window box ,few years after appear in bag wasted mold at party supply stores, not distributed by Wilton.In late 90′ 6 poses small bag of the 13 original set 54 mm scale original appear this time made in china and more wasted bad quality as cake topper too. I will think remain of HK cloned mold used by Chinese then. I wish the 54 mm would ever be reissue as is one of my missing links collection in Marx sets.
TD
I know that the 54mm pirates were done in the white soft plastic. If they were sold anywhere I have no idea. There were 13 poses but only 12 were sent to Hong Kong. These figures were to be used in a playset that got cancel. Parts of the playset showed up over here. I got the pirates at a farmers market two hours from me.
As far as copies of the 54mm pirates I have not heard of any done. The thirtieth pirate was reissued by Glencoe Models who found the cavity in Florida.
The white soft plastic 54mm pirates were loaned to me in order to make some silicone rubber molds of them. We made lead castings from the molds. I still have some of the castings but the rubber molds were sold to another collector years ago. It would be great if someone could discover the original Marx 54mm pirate molds!
TD
The molds for 12 of the pirates are in Hong Kong if they still exist. You should be able to pick the 13th pose here in the states in white soft stiff plastic.
Is the 13th pose with the crossed pistols suppose to be Captain Kidd?
Eddie W
I have not heard of the 54mm pirates bring listed as character figures.
Eddie;You mean this one!?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161884907236?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2648&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
It was the captain pose of 13 poses set Marx, sold single around .You may be able to find it at shows too
The 13th pose is really nice in 54mm. I have the cake pirates, but wish the 54mm molds would be found to do some higher quality copies of the Marx pirates in soft plastic.
Admin: great photos and information.
Marx could have made a great playset with their British Grenadiers facing some 54mm pirates in the stockade ala Pirates Cove.
The 54mm Treasure Cove pirates were covered years back, in PFPC.
As far as is known, the 54mm soft plastic ones were test shots, never sold- looks like they were going to be done in HP if the set went into production.
I bought 2 sets of the white SP 54mm pirates from F Turner (I think) about 20 years ago; they were about $20 each as a set. I saw Francis put some of them on ebay recently, with individual figures going for $65 up to $300.
I got the red, down-size pirate ship at that time, too. A site called “worthpoint” has pix of the ship, and the cool set of accessories that were going to be part of the set.
Sean
The Marx 54mm pirates are interesting case. They were first made in the soft plastic, but never released. The soft plastic pirates you got are from the land fill finds. Then all but one pose is sent to Hong Kong and a set is produced then they canceled the set for some reason. The pieces of the unproduced playset all have come up to the market. You got a good buy on the piates.