Marx Monsters

[Dr.Terror]

There's already a Dracula. Didn't you see the photo? 

Thats an unlicensed custom so it does not count.   

[ilikemonsters]

Also probably unavailable for purchase?

[Hepcat]

I only know of PlastiMarx UniMon repops in the lime green. They also did flesh colored repops of the Series 3 Nutty Mads.

I'm not certain of the relationship between Marx and PlastiMarx since Marx was still in business in the '70s. It could be that after Marx was bought by Quaker Oats in the early '70s a portion of the business was sold to PlastiMarx which may have been the Mexican subsidiary of Marx or a separate company under the name PlastiMarx.

I don't know exactly what happened to PlastiMarx but the assumption is that they went out of business some time after the '70s and the molds ended up in the hands of other Mexican companies (or just one company). The PlastiMarx product wasn't as high quality as original Marx but it was much better than the Mexican repops that came later and are still being cranked out. Also, the PlastiMarx figures had Marx markings on the base bottoms whereas the later (and current) Mexican repops are unmarked. For example, the green PlastiMarx UniMons were marked like the original orange Marx UniMons from 1964+ with the date barred out.

Here's a link to some info on the history of Marx Toys with a mention of PlastiMarx down the page a bit:
http://americanplasticequipmentinc.com/history_marx.html

Interesting that Marx's Mexican Plastimarx subsidiary produced only lime green Universal monsters.

About the time of Hong Kong, Marx also established Plastimarx to manufacture and distribute Marx Toys in Mexico, by shipping the tooling to the downtown plant on Aviacion Street, in the Industrial section of Mexico City. Marx was established with the Diez-Barreiro family. By this time in the 1950s, Louis Marx and Company was operating 3 huge manufacturing plants in the U S A. The Erie, Girard, and Glendale plants employed over 8000 full time domestic workers. Marx also was producing from plants in England, Japan, Hong Kong, and other countries. The sheer volume of products manufactured and the international presence of Louis Marx & Co. heralded its emergence as indisputably the world's largest toy company.

Louis Marx, (as did Mr. Hershey) prided himself with high growth and profitability (he never failed to take a discount), without spending frivolously (he said that he had an advertising budget of $300) on advertising. This was the 1950s.

During the 1960s, Marx, picking up on the successful marketing by Mattel, Remco, and Ideal began to accept TV advertising as a legitimate marketing tool. He came in with a bang with one of the all-time great toy products "Rock-Em, Sock-Em Robots", and a TV Commercial featuring the Heavyweight World Champion, Rocky Graziano (see TV Commercials). Marx finished the decade in 1969 by releasing the all-time greatest ride-on toy: THE BIG WHEEL. "By Marx" hit again!

When Mr. Marx reached his 70s and his second generation had not taken over the company, it was time to consider an exit strategy. He said, "Toys is a young man's business". At that time, Mattel was quickly catching up with Marx in sales. After flirting with RJR on the private sale of the company, they quickly consummated a deal with Quaker Oats to sell the U. S., Hong Kong and Mexican divisions for the sum of 52.8 million dollars! Marx disposed of the other branches privately. Following compliance with the terms of the agreement, Mr. Marx remained available for consulting for 6 months and then was honorably discharged.

At about the same time, Quaker Oats purchased the smaller pre-school toy company known as Fisher-Price and consolidated operations. What worked for one, did not necessarily work for the other. It was the time of President Nixon, Watergate and Viet Nam; Quaker did not feel that the Marx Military product line fit in with the overall wholesome Quaker Oats image. By immediately discontinuing the line, it cut Marx's revenue without replacement. Furthermore, the Quaker management raised the Marx overhead considerably. After 52 years of consistent profit, Marx Toys under Quaker took a loss. Quaker never got the feel to manage Marx Toys, and after 3 years of mismanagement put the company up for sale.

Interesting how quickly Quaker Oats managed to run Louis Marx's excellent company into the ground. Quaker in fact ran Marx into the ground even faster than Nabisco ran Aurora Plastics into the ground after purchasing Aurora in 1969.

[Plastic Nebula]

That is very interesting information.
"Toys is a young man's business", what a brilliant quote!!
Thanks for digging that up Hepcat.

[Anton Phibes]

Thats an unlicensed custom so it does not count.

It's better looking than a Dracula who looks like nobody. Which is what you would get from Universal's licensing. Unless they went whole hog and got Lugosi too. Imma stick with my UMA Marx. It was made with tlc. And resin.

[Hepcat]

So consider. Marx established Plastimarx in Mexico circa 1950 to produce its toys for the Mexican and probably broader Latin American market. But Plastimarx like any other company would dump stock not sold through regular channels to wholesalers/jobbers who would then flip out the stock wherever they could - including to merchandisers in export markets, e.g. the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, etc. So if Plastimarx (a Marx subsidiary) produced some Marx Universal monsters in Mexico in a few unconventional colours such as lime green and Popsicle blue in the 1960's and these figures then ended up being bought and sold at retail by five-and-dime and other discount outlets in the States such as Meijers, should these Marx Universal monster figures not still be classified as legitimate vintage figures?

[Plastic Nebula]

I absolutely agree with that Hepcat. Also, who knows what might have been produced in the Hong Kong factory?
The Americans may have told them to produce monster figures in teal and they made popsicle blue because they
had no idea what "teal" even meant. It's all just speculation of course.

[Plastic Nebula]

Here's a shot of the Orange Marx set that i just got.

Marx - Universal Monsters Figure Set(Popsicle Orange) (1964) by John Baxter, on Flickr

[Mike Scott]

Here's a shot of the Orange Marx set that i just got.

Nice! 

[Earth 2 Chris]

Sweet! My Marx monsters are also orange. I still need Frank, Creech and Hunchback for my set.

[Dr.Terror]

There tends to be a bit of size difference between those with dates and those with dates blocked out.

Blocked out on right.  Both have air bubbles.

(From the Dr. Terror collection😉)

[Hepcat]

What?! So then are the Popsicle orange figures slightly smaller than the teal blue figures? And does your larger Mummy actually lack as much detail as your smaller one has or is that a trick of the lighting?

[Dr.Terror]

No lack of detail. Just the picture.   

[Plastic Nebula]

That's interesting!!
I just measured all of my Mummies and the Orange is slightly smaller. The Teal and both Popsicle Blue
are the exact same size. More mysteries!!

[Dr.Terror]

I dont even know how theyd do that.    Its like  the larger was panagraphed and produced slightly smaller mold.      Perhaps for another factory?     Which shoots a hole in my theory that airbubbled Teal and Orange were the very first run.