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Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure Louis Marx Toys, 1961
Day #990: August 20, 2014
Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon FigureTrachodon
Later version with raised right paw

Dinosaurs Old School Toys
Item No.:
n/a
Manufacturer: Louis Marx Toys
Includes: n/a
Action Feature: n/a
Retail: est. $0.35
Availability: ca. 1961
Other: Light grey, charming

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Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon FigureToys are a remarkable tool to seeing where we came from. It's not obvious, but the current toy landscape has evolved quickly form a primordial ooze just which started just before World War II - unpainted plastic toy soldiers were sort of the beginning of where we are all now. Things like paint and articulation weren't the most important thing - companies like Louis Marx Toys put out small, often unpainted creatures and men like this Trachodon for just a few cents. Some store displays encouraged kids to paint the toys, which was a great way to help with fine motor skills and, of course, keep costs down. Model kits were also very popular, but one shouldn't discount this very popular and collected line of plastic dinosaurs of varying sizes. They were kept in production, tweaked, and knocked-off like you wouldn't believe. Imperial Toy sells downsized copies of some of them to this very day in grocery stores in garish paint schemes on cheap packaging, and other companies have copied them for ages.

This particular specimen has no manufacturer or copyright, but the word "TRACHODON" is sculpted in his tail (see below) with "30' LONG" on the other side. He's about 5-inches long from tail to nose, and roughly 3-inches tall, making it more or less a 1:72 scale replica.

Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure

Given its age, the detail is a little soft - it's important to note that in this era, things like packaging were often a cheap cardboard box or a bag with a tag on it. I don't even know how this one came packaged - it belonged to my dad, and wound up in my toy box and being one of my dad's toys I held on to it. What's also fascinating is that science may have rendered this toy irrelevant in many ways - now the school of thought is that dinosaurs didn't drag their tailes, may have had feathers, and in the case of the Trachodon may not have been particularly accurate back in the day, and as a species name it seems to have fallen out of favor for other billed dinosaurs. What we have here was a replica of an ancient creature, which now serves as a physical manifestation for now-incorrect scientific finds from the 20th century.

Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure

The sculpted detail isn't scaley, but it does seem something like a plucked chicken. Bumps and indentations, simplified eyes, a simple mouth, and back in the day this was pretty decent stuff. He has no problems standing and is, for all intents and purposes, the dinosaur equivalent of green army men... but taller. I assume most dinosaur sculptors would be disgusted or ashamed to put out anything this simple, but it's my understanding these were spectacularly cheap toys. I'm willing to trade detail for cost if the cost is low enough, and these were supposedly just pennies.

The quality of the plastic is good - consider this toy was played with by at least two generations of kids, stored in a big box of toys with zero thought of preservation and safety, and there's not a single stress mark or breakage point on it. The plastic feels very light and hard, with a little give in the tail. It isn't oily or smelly, and there's a reason this kind of toy is still made for kids cheaply. It just works - the modern action figure collector doesn't seem to want these and it's sort of understandable. We've seen some real wonders come out of ReSaurus and Kenner's Jurassic Park lines, and older fans want amazing deco and spectacular sculpting. Hasbro put out some stunning dinosaurs a few years ago with action features and astonishing sculpting, but they were also close to $30. There are trade-offs.

The production was cheap and if made today these could be cheap still - but it's also primitive. Mego's figures in the 1970s and Kenner's figures of the 1980s especially changed the perception of what a toy should be, with Tyco's Dino-Riders really changing how collectors viewed a toy dinosaur as time went on. This figure can be bought on eBay for $1 or so - not bad, given it is over 50 years old - and you'll probably run into them at thrift stores and garage sales. I am kind of saddened to think that kids can't get a toy for a few cents now of decent quality, but such is progress. You can get a 6-inch Star Wars guy for $20 with a ton of articulation, but the $3 LEGO set is long dead and heaven help you if you want an action figure for $4.99 or less. Imperial seems to be carrying the torch for cheap stuff, while rumors swirl that Tim Mee may be doing something like this again real soon for their old dinosaurs. One can but hope...

--Adam Pawlus

Additional Images

Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure
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Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure
Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure
Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure
Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure

See more Louis Marx Toys figures in Figure of the Day:
Day 990: Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure
Day 1,019: Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Brontosaurus Figure
Day 1,073: Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Stegosaurus Figure

See more Dinosaurs figures in Figure of the Day:
Day 990: Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Trachodon Figure
Day 1,019: Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Brontosaurus Figure
Day 1,023: Schleich Dinosaurs Kragensaurier (Triceratops) Figure
Day 1,034: Schleich Dinosaurs Mammut (Mammoth) Figure
Day 1,062: Tim Mee Toys Green and Yellow Prehistoric Dinosaurs Figure Set
Day 1,073: Louis Marx Toys Dinosaurs Stegosaurus Figure
Day 1,126: Schleich Dinosaurs Ursaurier (Dinosaur) Figure
Day 1,418: Jesse Narens Stegoforest Brown Stegoforest with Acorn Warrior
Day 1,419: Wendy's Playskool Definitely Dinosaurs Triceratops
Day 1,420: Tootsietoy Dinosaurs Stegosaurus Action Figure
Day 1,421: Imperial Dinosaurs Styracosaurus
Day 1,434: Wendy's Playskool Definitely Dinosaurs Anatosaurus
Day 1,446: Wendy's Playskool Definitely Dinosaurs Apatosaurus
Day 1,726: Unknown Wind-Up Brown Tyrannosaurus Rex
Day 1,990: Playmobil 2013 Toy Fair Dinos Explorer Figure
Day 2,023: Boley Nature World Edaphosaurus, Allosaurus, Styracosaurus Action Figures
Day 2,026: Unknown Diplodocus Figure
Day 2,051: Hasbro Dinosaurs Baby Sinclair Action Figure
Day 2,057: Half Toys Dino Series T-Rex
Day 2,065: Lanard Primal Clash Mammoth with Shrapnel Action Figure
Day 2,120: Creative Beast Beast of the Mesozoic Dromaeosaurus Action Figure
Day 2,126: Boley Nature World Mosasaurus Action Figure
Day 2,167: Boley Nature World Apatosaurus Action Figure
Day 2,305: Creative Beast Beast of the Mesozoic Glow-in-the-dark Dinosaurs Zuniceratops Action Figure
Day 2,394: Glow-in-the-dark Dinosaurs Dimetrodon Action Figure
Day 2,398: Playmobil 2013 Toy Fair Dinosaur Explorer Figure
Day 2,550: Blip Toys Animal Planet Electronic Battling Dinos Set

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