Dinosaurs!

[horrorhunter]

1. Do you have all 23 of the different dinosaurs Marx evidently produced over the years?

2. Do you if each of these was available in multiple colours? Do you have multiple colours of each?

3. What are Tootsie Toy blow-mold dinosaurs? How were they sold? How do they compare with the Marx dinosaurs?

I can chime in for you, Hep. The Marx dinos were more earthy natural colors like green and gray, some browns, some tans, and specialty colors were metallic silver and metallic green. The Marx dinos produced in the '50s-'60s were the plastic with the lead-based pigment and were sometimes marbled with another color. These marbled pieces are highly sought after by collectors now, but the most valuable Marx dinos are the metallic green. Starting with the common #3398 Prehistoric Times playset in 1971, the plastic used is the waxy "heritage" plastic, which is always uniform in color. The older, lead-based plastic Marx dinos are usually the most sought after because the dinos were unique in slight ways with color shading, and slight differences in color. MPC produced the garish colors most of us remember from the '60s dinos. The carded, and playset, MPC dinos were all sorts of bright colors- red, blue, green, yellow, metallic silver, metallic blue, etc. The MPC cereal premium dinos were usually orange or purple, like the MPC unbreakable weird monsters given away in cereal boxes (I think, someone correct me if I'm mistaken.). Those hollow, toothy, dinos that showed up later as Tootsietoy were sold in dime bins at a Lay's 5 and 10 cent store in my home town in the '60's. I think they were originally made by a company called Ajax.

[horrorhunter]

My above reply is a little late! Sorry, I just now noticed I was answering a question from January.  Oh well, just trying to help.

[Monsters For Sale]

I had most of the Miller Plastics dinosaurs and extict mammals in the late 1950's.  I still like them best.

My favorite was the Triceratops:



He was a healthy 8 3/4" long.

My original one is long gone after all these years.  But I did buy the one pictured on eBay.  What a thrill it was to hold one in my hand again half a century later!

[Hepcat]

My above reply is a little late! Sorry, I just now noticed I was answering a question from January.  Oh well, just trying to help.

No need to apologize. I certainly appreciate your answer since I hadn't gotten one yet.

The MPC cereal premium dinos were usually orange or purple, like the MPC unbreakable weird monsters given away in cereal boxes (I think, someone correct me if I'm mistaken.)

I'm not saying that you're mistaken. The MPC Weird Monsters may very well have been given out as cereal premiums. They were certainly, however, given away as premiums in Frito Corn Chips.

[horrorhunter]

That's a very nice Miller triceratops, Monsters For Sale. Millers are easily broken, and pricey in great condition. I mostly stick to Marx/MPC with some Carnagie Safari and Papo thrown in. I also like the Sinclair (blow-mold and Marx-like) from back in the day. I went on a dino binge a few years ago and reconstructed several original Marx Prehistoric Times playsets from eBay auctions. Those Prehistoric Times playsets you get from people on eBay are always incomplete, so I accumulated a pool of original parts to reconstruct each playset. It was fun, but expensive, and a lot of work.

[horrorhunter]

I'm not saying that you're mistaken, The MPC Weird Monsters may very well have shown up as cereal premiums as well. They were, however, given away as premiums in Frito Corn Chips.

You are quite correct, sir. I got a purple MPC unbreakable weird werewolf from a cereal box back in the day (can't recall which cereal). At least I think it was from a cereal box. It may be one of those creative memory tricks, and it may have come from the Fritos. The werewolf is aboard my Haunted Hulk hull currently, with some of his peers. I do know I collected many grey Nabisco dinos back in the day from those very Fritos boxes-o-packs. Maybe someone else can verify if the MPC monsters were ever available as cereal premiums.

[Dr. Madd]

Hey Guys.. Contraversy time.. Who is your favorite Dinosaur? My three faves in no particular order-

Stegosaurus
Triceratops
Ankylosaurus..

For some reason, as I get older, the eras before and after the Dinosaurs have gotten my interest. Before the Dinosaurs, the World was incredibly wierd and afterward, strange, but familiar.

[CreepysFan]

Hey Guys.. Contraversy time.. Who is your favorite Dinosaur?

   

  1. Styracosaurus

  2. Triceratops

  3. Protoceratops

[CreepysFan]

  Hep - Here's a pic of the Tootsie-Toy dinos.  They're twice as big as the Marx dinos at 3 in. high and 5 in. long .  They sold individually for .20 cents each at 5 & 10 stores in the sixties.  There was also a Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus that I'm missing, at one time I had them all.  The Tyrannosaurus was taller probably at 4 in. high.

   

[Hepcat]

Impressive! I take it that the Marx dinos had more detail though.

[CreepysFan]

  Yeah, the Marx dinos are more accurate, and still the best.   

[Hepcat]

York distributed a set of forty Dinosaur cards in peanut butter and packages of peanuts in 1962. Here's a picture of the album for the cards that I lifted off the net:



These are a lot tougher to find these days than the York 1961-62 or 1963-64 Hockey cards. Here's a scan of some of my Dinosaur cards:

[long live kong]

Some of my favourite dinos (and non-dinos!).....

Deinonychus
Styrachosaurus - smaller than Triceratops but cooler looking
Protoceratops - don't know why I love this little guy but I do.
Liopleurodon
Pachycephalosaurus
Ankylosaurus
Quetzalcoatl - just for it's sheer size
Any of the Terror Bird family

And just about every other dino!

I collect Invicta dinosaur toys, had them as a kid and the quality of the sculpts are top notch. My oldest daughter loves dinos and has amassed a huge collection of toys which I keep a close eye on. Hopefully she'll pass them up to me one day!

[Hepcat]

Maybe someone else can verify if the MPC monsters were ever available as cereal premiums.

Nabisco definitely distributed dinosaur figurines in Rice Honeys and Wheat Honeys. This was done on more than one occasion it seems judging by the difference in the art gracing the various boxes:





But there's some question as to whether these dinosaurs were actually produced by MPC, or else Lido.



I'll have to get this book to answer the question:



Mike Fredericks also publishes a magazine called Prehistoric Times.

[long live kong]

That Millers plastics Triceratops look almost identical to the Invicta British natural museum ceratops, and about the same size too.