With holidays in the big box stores, if not yet here, l was thinking of where l shopped for and trains were sold when l was a kid. Marx was where you found it, and not in large amounts and there only leading up to December, to quickly disappear. Fischer's Hobby Shop in Louisville, Ky. had Lionel the year around, but l only bought O-27 track and Hudson's Miniatures model car kits. They carried no Marx. Was there any store, source in the country...NYC?, that carried a quantity of Marx year around? I only seem to have heard of it mail-ordered.
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Sears and Grants sold Marx at Christmas time. I use to see some Marx year round in the 5 and 10 stores.
A large part of Marx's business was providing retailers with, not only trains but other toys for the Christmas season. Many of the train sets were made to a specific price point specifically for the holidays and that's where the emphasis was placed.
Jim
Sears, Grants as mentioned above as well as Montgomery Wards were big Marx players. Much Marx history can be gleamed from their catalogs, being as Marx did generally not publish their own catalog.
Steve
Until I was 10 years old I lived in Brooklyn, New York. I can still remember the first Marx item I saw. It was a PFE 3/16" scale reefer. I could not believe how "cool" I thought it was. It was not inexpensive Marx plastic but I felt quite interesting. I remained interested in it all these years and put together the following link about the 3/16" scale cars: http://www.ebay.com/gds/Marx-3...0000001455546/g.html
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As Steve mentioned above, Sears catalogs were a good resource for what Marx sold at Christmas time. The book "The Toy Train Department" which I found on the bay a few weeks ago, has been a fun read of the toys of my youth. This book is a good resource for what Marx sold.
Dean
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Here, http://wishbookweb.com/, is a webpage where you can look at Marx, Lionel, Flyer, and other toys from catalogs of long ago.
Enjoy
Dean