Tuesday, 3 July 2012

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL: The Marx Lunar Exploration Miniature Playset by Arto


Woodsy, [here's my] Marx Lunar Exploration Miniature Playset! "Hand decorated by Artists", says the box. From the sweet 60's and made in Taiwan, and with Hong Kong box art. I just love these dioramas with little pieces of lunar surface, beautiful background decor, the space tank and the dynamic trio! Perhaps even better than being there!
Cheers
Arto

7 comments:

  1. Great pictures. I had one of these sets in the 1960s. They were expensive, so only had one. I recall most sets had a small polythene copy of one of the larger Marx battery-operated space vehicles.
    Wonder which tank hull was re-used for this vehicle!

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    1. From what I can make out in the picture, the tank hull looks like it might be a M-47 Patton tank, Andy, esp the nose and deck. Though if I look at other simple plastic Marx tanks, the wheel arrangement on those is more that of an M-48. Could even be a hybrid of the two. :)

      Best
      --
      Paul

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  2. Good point about expense Andy. Love the diorama boxed sets like this, but as a helpless child remember this was just the sort of thing that made my parents scoff at value (all that...space)...and so, it was a header carded bag of green GI's for me...sob.

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  3. Those were the days when such a simple thing as a box the toy came in was a work of art itself. Even the tri-tone screened images on the Remco toy packages had their own charm too.

    What a rich childhood we all did share !

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  4. Oh how I remember these sets, hellishly expensive at the time, I was fobbed off with a header card bag of polythene Thunderbird 3 and a bunch of spacemen at a Grotto one year.. sob.

    Box art is lovely and lifted directly from the Ladybird Exploring Space book!

    http://projectswordtoys.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/glory-days-of-space-by-wotan.html

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  5. I remember I got the white astronaut at the back in a cracker one year too - a green ripoff version, but for ages he was my favourite and definitive astronaut. I never knew he was based on a Marx toy.

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