Dinosaur Playsets

[horrorhunter]

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

No, in terms of collector desirability and dinosaur quality and count (36) this one is (#3398 from 1961 just posted previously).


In terms of terrain one of the Marx Mountain Sets, either One Million BC (1974), Prehistoric Mountain (1975), or Giant Prehistoric Mountain (1977), is the biggest and most elaborate (all 3 have the same mountain terrain pieces).

However, I have a really rare one that I'm going to post soon that trumps them all. It has 42 Marx dinos in several premium colors, and even though it lacks the spectacular mountain terrain (which didn't exist yet), it has more terrain than any other set...and an enigmatic back story. It's the Prehistoric Times GIANT Playset #1400 (Marx, 1963).

[horrorhunter]

Next up is an unusual little set. The World Of Dinosaurs #4130 (Marx, 1979) is the last prehistoric playset Marx made before going belly-up. It's a cute little set, but you can see what Marx playsets were reduced to at the end. The box is little larger than a cereal box. But in spite of it's diminutive size it's a very desirable set, with beautiful box art and a scarce footprint on the marketplace.

Attractively Illustrated Box:




Box Is Reversed For This Pic:


CONTENTS:

Small Vacu-Form Terrain Piece (Green Paper Thin Hard Plastic) (Unique to the #4130)

1 Revised Mold Group (PL-977) (8 Dinos in Canary Yellow Heritage Plastic)

1 Medium Mold Group (PL-750) (6 Dinos in Blue Heritage Plastic)

4 Cavemen (Any 4 from the Group of 6 Poses)

2 Palm Trees & 2 Ferns (Trunks/Bases in Brown Hard Plastic, Leaves in Green Soft Plastic)

18"X24" Plastic Playmat (Unique to the #4130)

Paperwork?

I bought this set off eBay a few years ago and it is complete according to the box and everything I've been able to find out about it (which isn't much). I don't know if Marx included any paperwork with these sets. There is no assembly except sticking the foliage pieces together and with all the cutbacks in size and quantity it's possible this set never included paperwork. These show up on eBay every few months in various states of completion and I've never seen any listed with any instruction sheets or booklets. Also, the small Vacu-Form rock is usually missing, or badly cracked if present. It's a tough piece to find in nice condition.

Marx made Storage Box Sets for other genres around this time- war, western, the usual. They are all kind of scarce now and really hard to find complete. When you do find one you might get it cheap whether it's complete or missing half the parts. Most sellers just don't know what these things are worth in relation to other similar items. Several years ago I was in frequent contact with Mike Fredericks (writer of Dinosaur Collectibles) and he gave me an estimated value then of around $200 for a nice complete #4130. I know if I had one for sale I certainly wouldn't take less than that for it. But, in the chaos and rampant ignorance of evilBay you might find anything at any price. That's most of the fun of it.

[Mord]

 Amazing! Dude, how big is your house? Your collection is crazy-good (and huge).

[Hepcat]

...in terms of collector desirability and dinosaur quality and count (36) this one(Prehistoric Times) is (#3398 from 1961 just posted previously).

I see that one doesn't have a playmat yet. With what set did the playmats first make an appearance?

In terms of terrain one of the Marx Mountain Sets, either One Million BC (1974), Prehistoric Mountain (1975), or Giant Prehistoric Mountain (1977), is the biggest and most elaborate (all 3 have the same mountain terrain pieces).

The One Million BC included slightly more pieces than the other two, did it not?

[horrorhunter]

I see that one doesn't have a placemat yet. With what set did the placemats first make an appearance?

The One Million BC included slightly more pieces than the other two, did it not?

I don't have the One Million BC set so I'm not sure if it had a playmat or not. I know the Prehistoric Mountain (1975) had a playmat and that is the first one I'm sure that had one. If the One Million BC (1974) set had one then it would be first. The set before that was the revised #3398 (1971) and it did not have the playmat.

The guy who was supposed to have written the book said the caveman count in the One Million BC mountain set was only 12 and it did not contain the playmat. If his info is correct then the One Million BC set actually had less pieces than the Prehistoric Mountain (1975).

[horrorhunter]

Amazing! Dude, how big is your house? Your collection is crazy-good (and huge).

It's pretty big, and packed. I had to start being careful what I buy in terms of size because in some places it's hard not to bump into things. It also makes it difficult to properly display your stuff when it gets stacked up like that. I'm not like one of those weird "horders" who can't walk for all the junk in their homes, it isn't like that. It's just that my shelves and closets are frickin' full of stuff. But it's all stuff I love so I don't want to sell any of it. You know how hard it is to get stuff back once it's gotten rid of.

[Mord]

 You bet. I'm still trying to find a complete set of teal Uni Monsters that I sold 20 years ago.

[horrorhunter]

These are my Chocolasaurs Dinotales Series 3 (Kaiyodo, 2002). I think these were high end Japanese candy premiums. Very beautiful little prehistoric models. Be sure to click the pics to view the details better.

All 24 of Series 3, #s 49-72:


These are the individual little paper sheets which came with each model. The backs have diagrams for snap-together assembly.


They all came with this Series 3 Checklist. Shown front and back.


I saw these for months in Prehistoric Times magazine but Mike Fredericks was asking either $100 or $125 for them. I started checking eBay not long after that (around 2003) and finally a set came up at auction. I won it for around $50. I wish I had all three sets but with the crazy prices on eBay for these I have to place them low on my priority list. They are almost always listed individually on BINs for around $10-$25 each. They are nice though.

[horrorhunter]

Several years ago I won an eBay auction for some MPC dino playset pieces which included the original shipping box. The set was obviously not complete, but I had no way of knowing what the original set contained since there is virtually no information on MPC prehistoric playsets the way there is for Marx sets. Then, a few days ago, I was on cyber safari hunting down pics for Christmas catalog ads for dino sets to post on UMA. I was thunderstruck when I found a 1976 JC Penney Christmas catalog ad for the very set that I had the original box for! The model number matched exactly, and with the info from the ad pic and text I was able to reconstruct the set from my playset stash I had accumulated over the years (it's very large). The only thing I'm missing is the instruction booklet. In the 13 years I've been haunting eBay for dino toys I've never seen an MPC dinosaur playset instruction booklet. I store the set in a new box with a copy of the playset ad taped to the front. The original box is pretty small and I don't want to damage anything. Boy, they really crammed that stuff in there back in the day.

1976 JC Penney Christmas Catalog Ad:


Here, then, is the Prehistoric Playset #923-2083 (MPC, 1976, JC Penney).

Original Shipping Box:










CONTENTS:

2 Mountains (Blue Soft Plastic)

4 Rock Arches (Blue Soft Plastic)

2 Caves (Gray Soft Plastic)

60 Dinosaurs (2 or 3 of each of the 24 MPC Dinos in various colors)

10 Cavemen (3 poses in Red)

10 Palm Trees (Trunks in Green & Brown, Leaves in Green)

Instruction Booklet (according to the catalog ad)

MPC dinosaur playsets are much less sophisticated than Marx sets, but they are very colorful and hold a nostalgic charm for those of us who played with them as kids. I never had one of the big MPC sets like this when I was a kid. I had several of the carded sets of 12 dinos though (2 different cards for a total of 24 different MPC dinos/prehistoric mammals). There aren't really any premium colors or types of MPC dinos the way there are with Marx. The ones in metallic blue seem to be a little more desirable but are no less scarce than any others. Some of the unusual colored MPC dinos that came as cereal premiums do tend to sell for a little more (purple & orange & ?). MPC Wooly Mammoths and Megatheriums seem to sell for more because of demand and size. MPC made five prehistoric mammals that Marx never made: Ceratogaulus, Machrauchenia, Glyptodont, Diatryma, and Dire Wolf. These five have excellent sculpts to rival Marx sculpts, and are probably in bigger demand for collectors wanting to add to Marx collections.

By finding this old 1976 JC Penney Christmas Catalog Ad it allowed me to put together a set I never knew I had. I guess this is my Christmas present straight from a 1976 Christmas Catalog. A dino toy collector could hardly ask for a better gift than an original Dinosaur Playset.

Happy Holidays

[Mord]

 All I can say is...WOW! Now that's a serious collection.

[horrorhunter]

All I can say is...WOW! Now that's a serious collection.

Thanks, pal. More to come.

[Dr. Madd]

He must mean the color of the mountain/rock pieces. It could have been the Marx Giant Prehistoric Mountain (1977), or the #4208 Marx Prehistoric Dinosaur Playset (1978) (pic below).

I had this one! I still have the mammoth from it, but my family dog mauled the poor thing.

[horrorhunter]

I had this one! I still have the mammoth from it, but my family dog mauled the poor thing.

That's the Marx #4208 from 1978. Here's a pic of mine.



And here's a Christmas Catalog Ad for it (probably Sears '79 Wishbook):


Some of those dinos in that ad are white! Now, that's really weird. I've never seen a white Marx dino, whether it's original Marx plastic, Marx Heritage plastic, After-Marx, or repop.

[Hepcat]

MPC dinosaur playsets are much less sophisticated than Marx sets, but they are very colorful and hold a nostalgic charm for those of us who played with them as kids.

They're wild colourful! I can sure see why they would have been popular with both kids then and adult enthusiasts now.

I never had one of the big MPC sets like this when I was a kid.

Several years ago I won an eBay auction for some MPC dino playset pieces which included the original shipping box. The set was obviously not complete....

By finding this old 1976 JC Penney Christmas Catalog Ad it allowed me to put together a set I never knew I had. I guess this is my Christmas present straight from a 1976 Christmas Catalog. A dino toy collector could hardly ask for a better gift than an original Dinosaur Playset.

Happy Holidays

Happy holidays indeed! No better present than finding that you can reconstruct something cool that you never even knew you had.

[horrorhunter]

Here is an interesting one I scared up off the web, Prehistoric Jungle Hunt from Toy Soldier Depot. It says it's a Limited Edition and it looks like a custom they put together a few copies of. I went to the TSD website and there was no sign of it. They seem to be sold out of all the dino sets they had listed. Probably hasn't been updated in awhile.



Looks like Marx Second Series Dinos/Prehistoric Mammals with some dupes (probably repops), natives, hunters, tents, trucks, and weird terrain/foliage. Some of the rocks are from those lame Miner dino sets from '81 (poorly recast MPC rock arch and some company's rocks). The only good trees in the set are the repopped Marx "A" trees. The rest of the trees are cheap palms and those orange things look like undersea plants or coral...weird.

This is a good idea for a playset. If they added good terrain and foliage to this set with a nice colorful box it could be pretty cool. It also needs more dinos for variety, and a couple of nice big playmats with lots of water and jungle. I would have called it Dinosaur Safari.