Barn Find Marx Toys "Double Gun" 1950s Hard Plastic Spaceship

The crew from Ganymede Station pulling another wrecked spaceship out of the snow. Which is half frozen methane, so ... you gotta watch out.

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The full score in their "Barn Find" condition though I knoweth not the history of the pieces prior to opening the boxes.

What we were upgrading from, an often misunderstood recast of the Marx "Double Gun" ship in goofy but to me enjoyable soft nukeslime green plastic. Molds for the four Marx ships surfaced in Mexico during the 1990s, possibly unmarked clones using a leftover mold made for Marx's Mexican Plastimarx subsidiary. 

Colors vary, all bright and happy and the serious collectors frown upon them. I like how they are more or less indestructible and it's easy to change color when painting etc. All you need is the form to trace and these have served me admirably in that role. One can often find them at around $35 shipped for all four, often in a sealed bag. You know where to look.

The real thing, sixty five years of atmosphere settled onto it and missing starboard gun nacelle.

"Blast Off!"'s scant mention of the forms, unless I missed something. That red color is the one to score.

ToySoldierHQ's somewhat more helpful graphic shows all four ship designs. Best answer I've been able to wrangle out of those in the know is that the things were on sale during 1952 and likely remained so through the decade. Marx also entered into arrangements with companies like Kleeware (Britain) and  Moldex (Australia) who essentially made them under license for their markets. Plastimarx in Mexico also likely made them during the hard plastic era as well, and I have an unmarked hard plastic A-Wing ship (style B in the graphic above) which may have been produced by any of them.

A quirk of the design -- Tried to get "in flight" pix of the ship using a painted backdrop and this was the best I could manage, as it's only intended to be seen sitting on a surface. Try to get a from below Dutch angle and you end up looking at hollow space.

Reminds me of a B-25 Mitchell, WW2 twin engine attack craft.

The "Heavy Rescue 411" parody idea in a nutshell. My dad is obsessed with those shows and my aim is to parody it with a science fiction twist, just to help me cope with having to sit through them almost every day ... My original intention for this new arrival was as a new wrecked ship for them to have to pull out of the snow. That it was logo marked by Marx had slipped my attention until having it in my hand. Imagine the surprise! And no, this doesn't go into an artwork. No paint shall touch its noble hull by my brush.

Length measures about four inches in all.

Deadly. Perfect for shipping interdiction and tactical strikes.

You would get out of its way, see.

Glorious. There does appear to be a flaw on the fuselage at the base of the right stabilizer. It has the shape of the design and does not go through to the underside.

"A B-25 crossed with the Batplane."

Another flaw visible just at the corner of the right landing pod along the inner wing. It also does not go through the plastic & looks more like a scratch. We note it to be thorough: The ship is a magnificent unlooked for score! Helps set the universe back to rights.

Just to compare. There's an additional post or two about the recasts in the blog history, search via prior posts at right or click the tag.

Here's a detail collectors might find handy: The wheels on this one have little raised ridge details, but all of my recasts have plain smooth wheels. Something to look for when evaluating finds as the wheels are the only parts not integral to the casting.

Gets its own box with bubbles. Will take care of her, and I promise no paint. Just for makin pix ...

... Often involving a helicopter. The more archaic and obsolete looking, the better.

Gold Soft Plastic "Rex Mars" Four Inch Figure - Is It A Marx Original? OH THE DRAMA

UPDATE: Two noted Marx authorities have chimed in, one saw no problem with the gold color and the other declared "Either Marx or Plastimarx" without hesitation. Good enough for me, and if the latter it'd be the first Plastimarx item in my stash.

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Factors to consider:

1) Gold is not one of the described original colors.

2) Gold is not one of the described recast colors.

3) Wear, aging and dust consistent with a vintage figure which has been on display.

4) Helmet has slight discoloration consistent with having been on display.

5) Wearing down of the front helmet notch consistent with described originals.

6) The flashing of overspill plastic at the mold seams is more pronounced on the recast.

7) The gold figure has the correct notches on the bottom of his feet consistent with Marx figures.

8) The vendor was an estate specialist, had a nice selection of other confirmed vintage spacemen.

If it is a copy it's likely "vintage" as well: He stood on someone's shelf long enough to collect dust and for the helmet to be slightly yellowed by pollutants. What I would ask is, if it's a bootleg why would it have the notches on the bottom of his feet?

Figure cast in a very soft semi-translucent gold plastic with an interesting marbling swirl. Which does remind me of the marbling on a known Hong Kong copy of an Ajax female also cast in a soft semi-translucent plastic but was significantly altered from the original pose. This is either an original, an exact copy of a Marx figure, or was cast in the same molds as the Mexican recasts by someone other than Marx before the Mexican figures were made. 

With known Mexican recast from the 1990s at right. The recasts are only described as being cast in a "smoky metallic silver". By my eyes the gold figure is also "older" in the sense that it was somebody's toy, played with for many years before coming into the hands of a collector.

Described original figures cast in metallic blue, metallic green, silver and white. Though the reference source cited their size as 5 inches. If they got that wrong ... Counter point is that I have metallic blue, green and silver figures of the 70mm "Rex Mars Official Planet Patrol" figures released prior to these and their plastic is less waxy and stiffer than this gold stuff.

Note wear to helmet notch, a described trait of the original figures due to the softness of the plastic. The Mexican recasts use a much stiffer plastic and my recast example was new/unused. This was played with extensively.

Known Mexican recast helmet at right.

Left: Semi translucent light absorbing plastic.

Right: Opaque light reflecting plastic.

The seam overspill / flashing is much more pronounced on the Mexican recast.

Note the difference in the hands.

Better trimming to the gold figure. The thumb on the gold figure also appears to be further away and better defined than the thumb on the silver recast.

Pictures are helpful but are only a representation of the figure. 

Do I think it's a Marx original? Unsure just what to think. 

Do I hope it's a Marx original? Not any more, though I did at first. Man enough to admit that.

My collecting motto runs "You buy the spaceman and not the story." No claim was made about the gold figure other than it was vintage so nobody got had however it may work out. The price was very reasonable and it's different enough from the recast to be of interest regardless of what it's story might be. In terms of probability my call is a 60% chance that it was not made by Marx and likely to remain an unknown. Only thing which can be said for sure is that he's cast in a very different plastic than the Mexican re-issue and has been around much longer than they have. He was somebody's toy once until ending up in an estate liquidation. Now it's my turn to have him, and someday he'll pass along to another enthusiast at my estate liquidation. We just rent these things for a while.