I've latched onto the idea that this very brief production run of miniature space toy sets were Marx's reaction to the Golden Astronaut and Spacex toy lines. Both featured reduced size astronauts with some sort of space vehicle, Marx upping the ante with sculpted terrain pieces and a window box construction with impressive folding popup diecut diorama stage to get the imagination rolling. I'd be interested in learning what these sold for at retail in 1970.
This particular set arrived with its Space Tank loose from its correct natural colored Marx factory twine, and all of the other toy pieces tied down with black sewing thread and, hideously, adhesive applied to glue them to the printed surface of the diorama stage. Marx did not use black sewing thread or adhesive to fix the pieces in place: Their concept for the sets had owners cutting them loose for play including on the diorama stage. So if you come across sets with the pieces glued down that was a prior owner and collector (or vendor) assembling the set to appear as-was.
I believe the figures stand at 30mm, on-scale with the Golden Astronaut figures for that toy line, which is what got me wondering if these were a response. Will look at that idea closer in another update.
Pilot figure with left arm extended outward in what I call the Werner Von Braun position, mimicking a famous picture of the German rocket scientist after a complicated surgery to repair a fractured arm.
Merkwuerdigliebe
The reduced sized cameraman is unique to this series. For whatever reason Marx did not downsize a cameraman for their Mystery Space Ship & Space Ranger sets, whose figures are somewhat larger but are still nicely reduced Operation Moon Base poses. But if you want a downsized cameraman you gotta go the LEMP route here.
Stamped "Marx Toys Made In Taiwan".
Same here. He'd been adhered to the surface of someone else's playset, which as we can see had to be ruinously marred to remove him. Obtained loose along with the pilot figure last fall.
Maybe even more exciting to have these freed. They feel like resin castings rather than formed plastic mold pieces. Very hard plastic.
Dunno if those are maker's marks or something related to the molding process.
And again on this one just below the white surface remnant.
Very odd, and worth the wait to finally get to look these over.
Space Tank had come loose prior to my obtaining the set and I was overjoyed. Soft plastic chassis with hard plastic dome & painted operator figure.
Also marked Made in Taiwan. Box inking states Made In Hong Kong, so perhaps the toy pieces were fabricated in Taiwan and then the sets assembled, painted and boxed in Hong Kong.
M-48 Patton tank chassis.
