Louis Marx and his brother David founded the company in 1919. During the height of the Great Depression in the 1930’s, when most people saw only financial despair, MARX's revenues grew during the depression. MARX opened factories in Erie and Girard, PA, along with their largest facility in Glen Dale, West Virginia. During the 1950’s, Louis Marx & Company. became the “largest toy manufacturer in the world,” with over one-third of all toys in the U.S. being MARX Toys. In 1972, at the age of 76, Louis Marx sold his toy company to Quaker Oats Toys, but some years later the company was sold again. In 1980 the MARX brand name disappeared completely.
MARX's Toys included tinplate buildings, tin toys, toy soldiers, playsets, toy dinosaurs, mechanical toys, toy guns, action figures, dolls, doll houses, toy cars and trucks, and HO scale and O scale trains. Louis Marx and Company was an early player in the plastic toy field as well. After World War II, MARX introduced more vehicles, taking advantage of the injection moulding techniques with various plastics.
Lumar Lines was a name used for a line of floor operated tin toys, trucks, vehicles, trains beginning in the early 1930s, in the United States and England. Linemar Toys was a trade name under which MARX Toys were manufactured in Japan, then sold in the United States and other countries. The reason to make Linemar Toys in Japan was to keep costs down.
This is a model of a 1955-59 era Lowlight Karmann Ghia VW Coupe that was produced by Louis Marx Toys (USA) and was made in Hong Kong in 1959. The plastic body has cut out windows and details of the front hood, rear hood and door seamlines. The rear hood has air louvers. The silver metal chassis has the front and rear bumpers in the casting. There are black plastic wheels on metal axles attached to the chassis. The chassis is stamped with the MARX insignia and is attached to the body with a single metal rivet.
