YOU ARE INSIDE MARX
MARX: TOY KINGS Volume 2 continues the epic story from Volume 1. A defining work on the development of the Marx playset from the earliest days of Louis Marx & Company to its demise using factual accounts and eye-witness interviews in exhausting detail. Brand new! - The original work from the original publisher finally available at a lower price.
DELIVERY NOTICE THIS BOOK ONLY - TOY KINGS VOLUME II (HARD COVER ONLY) can ship after Oct 30, 2022. All others, including Toy Kings Volume I Hard Cover, Toy Kings Vol II GLOSSY SOFT cover, are available for order now.
Volume II picks up with Louis named “Toy King” by Time magazine. But he faces his greatest challenge ever as television advertising puts his competitors right in the homes of children and Louis refuses to manipulate a child’s desires with TV ads. Meanwhile the firm is at its height and Louis’ designers Frank Rice (Battleground) and Al Bagg (Iwo Jima) and Ed Hjelte are turning out the greatest playsets the world has ever known: The Giant Blue & Gray, Battleground, Wagon Train and many more, driving toys into a new age of plastics and playsets. This history at its finest -- and most fun!
Here is their story, told for the first time in book form -- an “inside-the-halls-of-Marx” history as told by the men who lived it and created the astonishing miniature worlds in a box. Participating fully are a wonderful bunch of guys, funny, informed and they were there, in the offices and halls of Marx with Louis at the height of the firm -- and you will be amazed at what they saw and tell about: Charles Marx who worked at the firm from the mid-1950’s until the end, Ed Furie, Marx’ personal assistant and a top salesman during the same period, Frank Rice and Al Bagg, who designed the actual Marx playsets: Fort Apache, Battleground, D-Day, Battleground, Iwo Jima, Battle of the Little Big Horn, Guns of Navarone and many others.
- What inspired Marx to invent playsets?
- What made Louis open the Hong Kong Factory?
- Discover Louis' 6 fabulous secrets to success!
- What really caused those toy substitutions in Marx sets?
- What strike? And why did it happen at Louis' beloved factories?
- Why did the FBI investigate the lovable Toy King?
- Why was Walter Cronkite involved in playsets?
- What led to the demise of the firm and why did employees call it the Alamo?
Hear from them all throughout the history of the firm, learn their secrets, and the names of the men and often beautiful women behind the scenes at Marx making “Toy Kings” Volumes I and II the bountiful, definitive reference works on the Marx company and the heyday of 1950’s & 60’s toys and playsets.
Impeccably researched during a ten year period and written by Rusty Kern, with his producing partner and wife Kathy, the two are publishers of Playset Magazine, America’s only source of information on vintage playsets and plastic figures.
"This is the singular industrial history for advanced collectors and people who want to know what it was -- exactly -- that made Marx such a great firm. It was the people, and their human, funny, exciting story is told thrillingly."
PS - We cover playsets in extreme detail in Playset Magazine, or our other books on eBay “The Marx Alamo”, "Fort Apache, King of Playsets" and "Marx Civil War," which also includes a chapter on other makers sets and toys like MPC Blues & Grays, Ideal, Timmee, Lido and many others. This book is about the company that made them.
Deluxe hard cover, full color & black and white vintage photos. This version hard cover does not have the dust jacket (and never did).
Soft cover version available on eBay from Atomic!
Over 225 photos