No collection of toy dinosaurs would be complete without the “great fused lizard”, Ankylosaurus magniventris, and it has been that way since 1955 with the release of the first dinosaur toys ever mass produced, by Marx. The Marx Ankylosaurus was included in Marx’s second wave of dinosaur toys, known as Medium Mold Group, PL-750. It was then released again in...
Trachodon is, or was, a genus of hadrosaurid described by Leidy in 1856 for which the only material known was a mix of teeth from both hadrosaurids and ceratopsians. That’s not much to go by and Trachodon is now considered nomen dubium. During its day however, Trachodon was a household name and the classic “duck-billed” dinosaur of pop culture. This...
Originally released in 1955 as part of Marx’s Medium Mold Group, PL-750, today we’re looking at the Marx Allosaurus. This group of toys included the Allosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Hadrosaurus, Pteranodon, Stegosaurus, and Trachodon and was Marx’s second set of dinosaur toys. In 1959 the Marx Allosaurus would be re-released as part of their Revised Mold Group. This Allosaurus is part of...
This review marks a somewhat significant milestone on the blog with regards to Marx reviews. This is the last review for the toys released under the small mold group, PL-755; they’ve now all been covered here. There are still plenty of Marx toys left to write about but for this group in particular, we’re done! Not bad when you consider...
No line of toy dinosaurs would be complete without a Triceratops and that’s a fact that has remained true since the beginning of dinosaur toy production with Marx in the 1950’s. Sure, many other elaborately horned dinosaurs have come onto the scene over the subsequent years but Triceratops is a classic and like Tyrannosaurus can never be dethroned. That it...
When I originally started reviewing Marx toys I only had four lined up for review but between then and now I’ve collected a few more which will extend my Marx series for the next few reviews. Up until now all of the toys I reviewed were from Marx’s 1961 second series mold group, PL-1083. There are a few more toys...
Why is a requirement that every line of toy dinosaurs includes the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius)? Even if said company otherwise ignores extinct mammals there is almost always a woolly mammoth and this is especially true with vintage companies. In the case of Marx there are only 3 mammals, but one of them is a mammoth. Inpro has a mammoth...
In addition to a diverse assortment of dinosaurs Marx also produced quite a few other prehistoric animals. Some, like the Dimetrodon and Pteranodon were obvious additions to the line; others like the Cynognathus are more surprising additions. Marx also produced three Pleistocene mammals (not counting the cave men) and you could probably guess what at least two of them were....
Carrying on with our series of Marx reviews next up is that most popular of ornithopods, Parasaurolophus. Like the previously reviewed Styracosaurus this figure is part of the Second Series Mold Group, PL-1083. This mold group was the most recent and last from Marx, produced in 1961. I’m hard pressed to think of a Parasaurolophus toy that’s older than this,...
It’s no secret, finding subjects to review for the DTB has become somewhat of a challenge over the last several years. Nearly every figure by all the major players has been reviewed or has a review in the works; Safari Ltd., Carnegie, Papo, CollectA, PNSO, Battat, Invicta, Tyco, and the list goes on. But dinosaur toys and collectables have been...
Given that I counted correctly, this here will be my 50th review for the DTB. On the search for a worthy entry for that occasion, I decided to add some figures to my collection that will provide the chance to combine the jubilee with a premiere cause to my big surprise I found that the American company Marx, despite its...
