TOY TRAIN BOOK
Manufacturer: Greenberg Publishing Company, Inc., distributed by Kalmbach Publishing Company, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Price: Cindy Lee Floyd et al., Greenberg's Guide to Marx Train Catalogues: 1935-1975, 192 pages, 8 1/2 x 11 hardbound, product number 10-7440 $74.95 suggested list.
I AM FAMILIAR with toy trains and toy train collecting. My first train set as a child in the 1940s was a Lionel.
That interest in toy trains still lives. I have collected Lionel trains and those of other American manufacturers including Marx. Even though I never seriously sought out Marx items, my collection contains a few nice pieces of Marx rolling stock and a lot of Marx accessories. I'm nuts about their signal and radio towers, for example. Something about those metal, toylike items makes a tinplate layout come alive far more than the plastic counterparts from Lionel and American Flyer.
When I received my copy of Greenberg's Guide to Marx Train Catalogues: 1935-1975, my first thought was, "Wow! At last a book that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Marx trains!"
Wrong. It is everything Marx wanted you to know about Marx trains.
The beautifully compiled volume contains full size, and in some cases, additional reduced "overview" size, authentic reproductions of all known customer and dealer Marx train catalogues.
Marx manufactured toy trains for the "budget buyer". The product line was neither high-end nor did Marx support it with flashy paperwork to support sales. The buyers of Marx trains shopped more often at Woolworth's or Grant's than at F.A.O. Schwarz, J.L. Hudson, or Neiman-Marcus and Marx catalogues reflected that market segment. The catalogues were thin and the paper was often of an inexpensive grade. That means Marx collectors trying to obtain every catalogue face a tough and expensive task. Until now, for the collector with a general interest in Marx trains, good reference material has been nearly impossible to find.
But Cindy Lee Floyd and her six collaborators painstakingly have amassed all known examples of the Marx consumer and dealer catalogues and reproduced them into one volume as precisely as technology permits. The book is a "one stop shop" for collectors.
Greenberg's Guide to Marx Train Catalogues: 1935-1975 is a valuable addition to any toy train enthusiast's library. It is an excellent book.-Don M. Scott, Railroad Man
