Marx Apollo
Lunar Landing /Lunar Exploration
Back in 1970, directly after the real Moon Landing by Neil
and Buzz, Marx had a series of neat little shoe box sized sets that were a diorama
you could tear up and play with. I was lucky to score one of these in S.H.
Kress dime store in Greenville, Texas, similar to this one:
Digging into the foggy past, I think it was $1.98. It came
with three 35mm Astros, a moon buggy, a boulder, 2 large craters, 2 small
craters, and a group of small rocks. It looked like this surviving version.
The Moon Buggy, called a “Grabber” because of the two black
painted, molded on arms on the side, was really cool. Not as big as the
Operation Moonbase vehicles,
and not having a trailer hitch, it was in a cool class all by itself. Roughly
1/72nd scale, the wheels were brittle polyethylene and did not last
long. The vehicle itself was more sturdy, and in spite
of getting brittle with age, I still have the little guy. Its
slightly larger than a thumb. The paint has worn off but has been repainted a
few times and unfortunately it has been emblazoned with laundry marker too. It
currently uses wheels off a cereal premium Mustang Two that fit. Marx made a large battery powered version of
the Grabber, also. I never saw one of these.
Of the three astronauts only one has survived and unlike the
three in the picture he was a sitting astronaut. I occasionally happen upon a
crater or two in my stored junk. I don’t know what happened to the boulder or
the small rocks.
This was part of a series of apparently four. By the time I
got back to Kress’ there were, alas, no more. They were never to return. Both
Kress and Marx shut their doors about the same time.
Grabber, tank like vehicle, Buggy with a
radar and domes, and a buggy with a large antenna on the back.
The artwork in the set was cool and the quartz like growths
on the background were three-d popups.
Forty Four years later I am able to off you a chance to reproduce
this diorama on your own.
The box itself is roughly 9.5”L x 2.5 h, x 4.5” w
Print these PDFs out on cardstock and cut out the images. Leave tabs for gluing. The final
result should be an attractive diorama base with a neat “retro” look to display
some of your Marx or other space goodies. I did some work with photoshop after lifting these from net pics
so these are not 100% as original.
It looks niiiiice!
The comet goes on the left side.
The craters are here just for those who want them. I don’t
like them and hope to find the real ones in a box or drawer someplace and
duplicate them with epoxy. But if you want them on your moon-scape, here they are.
I hope to soon offer the outsides of the Apollo box as shown
here.
Back, with logo.
Left outside (Note date and address)
Right outside. Says “Made in Taiwan”
Kind of a neat way to remember our last great manned
endeavor into space. And it was all done with slide-rules and 50s-60s
technology.
As of this writing our space shuttles are nothing more than
gate guards and we have no real manned space program in the United States. We
depend on the former Soviet Russia to get our men to the useless space station
and to give us motors for our rockets. The moon seems a lot further away than
it used to.
You can Email me at
All serious email will be answered.