Dinosaur Playsets

[horrorhunter]

Too cool to still have that ten cent dinosaur!

Back in 1958 when I was in grade one I remember a variety store on the south side of Wharncliffe Road that had five cent knight figures displayed beside the penny candies in a glass fronted cabinet. Unfortunately we moved before I acquired the wherewithal to buy any of them.

Yeah, that Pot-Bellied Rex with the 10c on his belly is one of my prized dinos. I'm pretty sure I picked him up in '62 or '63 before I got the squarebox set for my 4th birthday. I liked toy dinos a lot before I got the playset, but when I got it I really went toy dino crazy. The next year in '64 MPC started selling their carded sets of 12 dinos (2 different cards). I conned my parents into buying me several of those, and I still have a bunch of the original ones as well as the MPC dinos I've picked up off eBay over the years. That reminds me, I discovered that I had a playset I didn't even know I had! I found a JC Penney '76 Christmas catalog ad for an MPC playset and between the photo and the text I discovered I had the entire set all along in my stash...even the original box. I'll be posting that one later on. I still have several dino playsets to post, as well as a couple to repost which deserve better than the crappy pictures from my old camera. Lotsa dinoing to come from me, and I think bigbud is getting fired up for toy dinos too, so we may see more posts from him. 

[horrorhunter]

Superior produced three of the best After-Marx sets in the late '80s. This is my Rulers Of The Earth 47-Piece Prehistoric Dinosaur Playset #5501 (Superior, 1987) (the medium size set).







CONTENTS:

2 Land Bridges Terrain (Yellow & Brown Hard Plastic)

2 Boulders (Yellow & Brown Hard Plastic)

1 Large Mold Group (Pot-Bellied T-Rex, Brontosaurus, Kronosaurus, in various swirled colors)

1 Medium Mold Group (6 Dinos in various swirled colors)

9 Dinosaurs Total

24 Cavemen (12 in Reddish Brown, 12 in Beige)

4 Palm Trees & 4 Ferns (Black Trunks/Bases, Green Leaves)

36" X 32" Playmat

Dinosaur Booklet

"Booklet" (Really a large single sheet folded into booklet size. This is the front and back.):


Inside of the front and back. Fully unfolded it covers each dino and gives a timeline.


Strange that the Superior Booklet covered the Small Mold Group dinos (see Sphenacodon and Dimetrodon above) since Superior only used the Large Mold, Medium Mold, and Second Series Mold for their sets. The Small Mold was gone by the late '80s, believed lost, damaged, or in the hands of another company. They probably just copied information from the original Marx Booklets.

Superior sets were only sold for a couple of years and are much more scarce than original Marx sets. Superior made great dinos using good quality plastic in the old Marx molds (which were beginning to show signs of wear by now). The colors were swirled which makes them popular with collectors. Superior also made good quality palm trees with black trunks, and nice cavemen in beige and reddish brown. In the medium and large sets they included a great playmat, very large and thick, and well designed. Not so great was the terrain Superior used, except in the large set with the large Marx Mountain main piece molded in yellow and brown. The smaller terrain pieces were just land bridges and boulders from the old Marx Comanche Pass mold. Worst about the Superior sets are the flimsy cardboard boxes they came in. The boxes are designed pretty well from an art/layout standpoint but they are so thin they literally fall apart if you aren't careful (Marx used tough corrugated boxes in the old days). I have all three Superior sets but I never have found a surviving large Superior Mountain box. The weight and size of the large set was especially tough on the flimsy cardboard and the big boxes are tough to find.

BTW, that original price sticker on my box above reads "Lowens" and "$19.99". Seems expensive for that set in 1987. Maybe that's another reason Superior sets weren't sold for too long. I guess production costs by that time forced high retail prices. Anyway, the combination of scarcity and collector demand could make buying a Superior set today a pricey proposition as well. You never know in the chaos of evilBay though...I got my sets pretty cheap. Must have gotten lucky.

[horrorhunter]

Here's the Rulers Of The Earth 27-Piece Prehistoric Dinosaur Playset #5503 (Superior, 1987). This is the small Superior set.





CONTENTS:

1 Land Bridge (Yellow & Brown Hard Plastic)

1 Boulder (Yellow & Brown Hard Plastic)

1 Medium Mold Group (6 Dinos in Various Swirled Colors) (The Box says 5 Dinos but I'll bet they usually put the entire Medium Mold Group of 6 in these sets)

12 Cavemen (6 in Reddish Brown, 6 in Beige)

4 Palm Trees & 4 Ferns (Black Trunks/Bases & Green Leaves)

These small sets had no booklet or playmat. This one still has the contents factory sealed in plastic bags. I won the eBay auction for this set a few months ago and only had to pay $15 plus shipping. I had a high bid in of about 4 times that and still only thought I had about a 50/50 chance of winning it. You never know about eBay. But I'm very pleased to have gotten it for next to nothing. 

[horrorhunter]

This is a better shot of the dinos from my Superior Rulers Of The Earth 47-Piece Playset. The reason Superior dinos are so popular with collectors is the swirled colors. Even though there are some small molding flaws where the old Marx molds were showing wear, these are some really nice examples of After-Marx dinos.



Superior dinosaurs were from either the Large Mold Group (3 dinos), the Medium Mold Group (6 dinos), or the Second Series Mold Group (8 dinos). They came in one of three swirled colors- green, gray, or brown. Because of the swirled patterns each Superior dino is unique, like the highly sought after marbled Marx dinos from the '50s/early '60s. Superior dinos were never sold in bins, bags, or blister cards. You could only get them in these playsets. They are much harder to find than original Marx dinos and usually sell for more (except rare color Marx dinos like marbled, metallic silver, metallic green, tan, and a few other color/dino combinations). Many sellers who don't know anything about Marx dinos think Superior dinos are just another color of Marx. Sometimes you can get lucky and find a Superior or two in a lot of Marx/MPC, but not often.

[Hepcat]

The next year in '64 MPC started selling their carded sets of 12 dinos (2 different cards). I conned my parents into buying me several of those, and I still have a bunch of the original ones....

Have you ever managed to score a mint-on-card set? If not, have you been trying?

[horrorhunter]

Have you ever managed to score a mint-on-card set? If not, have you been trying?

Yeah, I have a couple which I'll post. I'm always trying to find MOC dino sets but each year they get harder to find and more expensive. Now MOC examples are almost always over $100 and the nice ones seem to trade for closer to $200. Considering their rarity I think even these prices are too low. If I were rich I would probably have a dozen of them by now. Sadly they usually sell for more than I can spend at the time.

[horrorhunter]

Marx Second Series Carded Set (Early '60s):




MPC First Series Carded Set #873 (1964):




The Marx card is rough but I've seen much worse. It's intact with undamaged dinos and pretty good compared to the ones which (rarely) become available. All original Second Series Marx Dinos/Prehistoric Mammals are highly prized, and especially the Tan ones.

The MPC card is very nice and a collector would be hard pressed to find a better one today. The price sticker reads "Sav-on" and "89 cents".

I also have several backing cards for various carded dino sets from the '60s and '70s that I picked up cheap in an eBay auction several years ago.

[horrorhunter]

Strange Change, The Lost World #4581 (Mattel, 1967) is like a cross between a dinosaur/monster playset and a Thingmaker set. The Strange Change Machine is a heating unit disguised as a time machine. The creatures are plastic which can be compacted into little squares (w/Mattel logo) when heated, and they stay in square form until heated again when they expand back into the creature.

Awesome Box:




Instructions Side Of Playmat & Both Supplemental Creature Cards (without creature squares):


CONTENTS:

Strange Change Machine

Large Vacu-Form Mountain (Green Thin Hard Plastic, Brittle)

16 Time Capsules (Creature Squares) (in Red, Yellow, Green, and Purple)

Tongs (Blue Soft Plastic)

Landscape Map (Playmat)/Instruction Sheet

8 More Time Capsules Available On 2 Blister Cards

I still have the remnants of my original set that I received for Christmas in 1967. I purchased this complete set off eBay a couple of years ago. The heating unit still works, but I wouldn't use it on the creatures/Time Capsules because they get scorched and damaged if changed too much and they don't retain their shape as well. I had big fun with this as a young Monsterkid. My favorite creatures were always Membrane Man, Hooded Skullkaronamus, and Snaggle Fanged Oculus.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Change_Machine

http://www.collecttoys.net/1960s-Toys/strange-change-machine.php

http://toys.pop-cult.com/strange-change-machine.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4IVTXfESeY#ws

This vid is great. It even has the original commercial in it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHuyrP2YG-4#

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=WL&v=aokEzQ7WrP0&feature=player_detailpage

[Hepcat]

Wow! That is too cool!

[bigbud]

Very nice stuff!

[bigbud]

Didn't include these guys in my previous photos cause they didn't have the Marx "look". But can't pass on a chance for Horrorhunter to have a look and maybe comment on em.......

[Hepcat]

Cool! What then are those?

[horrorhunter]

Didn't include these guys in my previous photos cause they didn't have the Marx "look". But can't pass on a chance for Horrorhunter to have a look and maybe comment on em.......

Those are nice, Bud.

The four red ones at the top are MPCs: Glyptodont, Dimetrodon, Plateosaurus, and Struthimimus.

The silver one w/long nose at the top is Nabisco (Lido) Macrauchenia, silver one to the right/middle is Nabisco (Lido) Baluchitherium.

The little wilmpy looking green, red and white ones are Timmees (not much collector demand).

The red alligator is an MPC jungle animal.

Not sure about the little elephant at the top but he doesn't look prehistoric.

The rest in green, brown, and black are Nabisco (Lido) that were premiums in Wheat Honeys & Rice Honeys, and later Fritos 6-packs of small bags.

Nothing super valuable there but most dino collectors are into MPC & Nabisco (Lido) (me included). The Timmees not so much.

Here's a link to a previous post in this thread covering the Nabisco dinos/prehistoric mammals made by the Lido company:
http://www.universalmonsterarmy.com/forum/index.php?topic=23582.msg438031#msg438031

[horrorhunter]

Prehistoric Times Play Set #3398 (Marx, 1961) is the set most Marx Prehistorics collectors strive to complete. I finally completed mine but it took over 10 years to do so (see pics below).




CONTENTS:

3 Piece Terrain (Cave, Rock Arch, & Lake in Brown/Black Marbled Hard Plastic)

1 Revised Mold Group (PL-977) (8 Dinos in Lt. Gray)

1 Second Series Mold Group (PL-1083) (8 Dinos/Prehistoric Mammals in Reddish Brown)

1 Medium Mold Group (PL-750) (6 Dinos in Tan)

2 Small Mold Groups (PL-755-7) (2 X 7 Dinos in Gray & Green)

36 Dinos/Prehistoric Mammals Total

2 Sets Of 6 Cavemen (12 Total) (Cream & Dark Tan)

4 Palm Trees & 4 Ferns (Brown Hard Plastic Trunks/Bases & Green Soft Plastic Leaves)

4 Terrain Clips (Brown Hard Plastic) (My 2 Extra Clips Are On Top Of The Box- See Pic Above)

1 Revised Booklet (P-1311)

Booklet:


Back:


Prominent Marx collector Joe DeMarco called this the "granddaddy of all playsets" and "the pinnacle of Marx production". An article on Marx Prehistorics in PFPC #64 calls it "King Of The Prehistoric Sets". To non-collectors this may just look like another set, but to Marx enthusiasts this is the one to strive for. The box is extremely cool and hard to find, showing an illustration of a Marx sleek T-Rex walking out of concentric circles representing a time warp. It's commonly called the "Time Tunnel Box" by collectors. It's the first Marx playset to include the Second Series Mold Group of dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals, and they are in the desirable reddish brown color in the #3398. The only other way to get the original lead-based plastic Second Series animals was on the blister card. One big reason the 1961 #3398 is sought after is it's inclusion of the Medium Mold Group of 6 dinos in the sought after Tan color, and the only way to get them in Tan. Time Tunnel boxes are VERY hard to find and many Marx collectors are still seeking one. This is also the first time the revised booklet appeared. In 1971 the #3398 was re-released with dinos and cavemen in "Heritage" plastic and a photo box and reprinted revised booklet. The 1971 version is fairly common and the Heritage plastic version of the dinos is uniform in color and look, offering none of the variety or premium colors of the original plastic.

About ten or eleven years ago I got lucky and picked up a near complete 1961 #3398 off eBay but it had no box (of course  ). It was only missing two of the dark tan cavemen and I got it for around a hundred bucks so I bought a new box to store it in and called it good. I've been on the hunt for a box and those two color matching cavemen for the last decade. In that time I've seen maybe half a dozen Time Tunnel Boxes pop up on eBay and every single one was in terrible condition, and I was outbid each time. Finally, a few days ago, I landed the box above with the remnants of that #3398. The two cavemen were present as well as an upgrade for my terrain pieces! That box is rough but so is every one I've seen for sale. When it comes to something that rare and desirable you take what you can find...and I finally finished the set. I could keep the pieces in the box but I've decided to continue to keep them in the new box so as not to put any more stress on the old veteran of the Dinokid Wars. I printed a pic of another Time Tunnel box (better than mine, but still with pencil holes  ) and taped it to the new box to identify the contents and I will store them together with my other playsets. Quest over...whew! 

[Hepcat]

Here's a little guy enjoying his Prehistoric Times #3390 (Marx, 1957) playset under the Christmas Tree.



A pic of my #3390.

That's the biggest and most elaborate Marx dinosaur playset, is it not?