If you collect vintage toy soldiers, action figures or playsets, you are likely quite familiar with the name Louis Marx. Louis Marx and Company created popular toy soldiers and western playsets throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s. They are all highly sought after today. So for now, let's just take a look at the Toy soldiers in particular.

Louis Marx, the man behind Louis Marx & Company, served in the Army during World War I. After the war was over he returned to making toys and during the 30s and 40s his company (and most other toy soldier manufacturers) made metal figures. This all changed during World War II, but it wasn't just because of shortages of metal. Plastic manufacture had become much more refined and opened up some new possibilities to toy manufacturers. So from the late 1940s onwards, plastic toy soldiers and action figures became all the rage.

Marx action figures continued original production through the 1970s before the company dissolved. Nowadays you can find vintage versions of their toy soldiers, action figures and playsets on Ebay. And there are also lots of Reissues made from the original molds available in various scales, such as 1:32, 60MM, 54mm, 25mm, and 6 inch Scale Figures.

Marx specialized in plastic figures and play sets. You could buy bags on unpainted toy soldiers and their accessories and paint them yourself. Collectors today prefer that their vintage plastic soldiers stay unpainted. Although, that does strongly depend on the type of collector.

There are many historical periods covered by the Marx figures and playsets, including ancient Rome and its chariot races and the US Civil War. But there's more than just the historical figures, there are also toy soldiers based on popular tv shows (usually Westerns) and some futuristic action figures as well, such as Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

In addition to the individual toy soldiers and painted or unpainted figures that you could buy in bags, Marx also made some really incredible playsets and somewhat specialized in Western playsets. Some of the most popular and collectible Marx Western playsets include the Fort Apache Stockade in 1951, the Roy Rogers Ranch and Mineral City in 1952, the Wyatt Earp playset in 1959, and the Gunsmoke playset in 1960.

Through the 50s and 60s, Marx manufactured high quality and highly detailed hand-painted playsets. Again, many of them were licensed products for tv shows, but there were also some very cool military historical playsets that you could use to build dioramas, such as Custer's Last Stand, 20 Minutes to Berlin, the Battle of Vikings and Knights, and the Charge of the Light Brigade sets.