Some of their notable toys are Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Big Wheel tricycles, Disney branded dollhouses and playsets based on TV shows like Gunsmoke.

[3] Marx raised money as a middleman, studying available products, finding ways to make them durable but less expensive, and then closing sales.

Enough funding was raised to purchase tooling from previous employer Strauss for two obsolete tin toys – the Alabama Coon Jigger and Zippo the Climbing Monkey.

[6] Marx listed six qualities he believed were needed for a successful toy: familiarity, surprise, skill, play value, comprehensibility and sturdiness.

[4] Unlike most companies, Marx's revenues grew during the Great Depression, with the establishment of production facilities in economically hard-hit industrial areas of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and England.

[4] In 1952 Marx Company stationary listed operations in: Mexico, London England, Swansea Wales, Durbin South Africa, Sydney Australia, Toronto Canada, São Paulo Brazil and Paris France.

These include "Roy Rogers Rodeo Ranch" and Western Town, "Walt Disney's Davy Crockett at the Alamo", "Gunsmoke", "Wagon Train", "The Rifleman Ranch", "The Lone Ranger Ranch", "Battle of the Blue and Grey", "The Revolutionary War" (including "Johnny Tremain"), "Tales of Wells Fargo", "The Untouchables", "Robin Hood", "The Battle of the Little Big Horn", "Arctic Explorer", "Ben Hur", "Fort Apache", "Zorro", "Battleground", "Tom Corbett Training Academy", "Prehistoric Times", and many others.

[12] Playsets included highly detailed plastic figures and accessories, many with some of the toy world's finest tin lithography.

In 1963, Marx began making a series of beatnik style plastic figurines called the Nutty Mads, which included some almost psychedelic creations, such as Donald the Demon — a half-duck, half-madman driving a miniature car.

These were similar to the counterculture characters of other companies introduced about a year before, such as Revell's Rat Fink by "Big Daddy" Ed Roth, or Hawk Models' "Weird-Oh's", designed by Bill Campbell.

Marx acquired the Woods company in 1934, although his brand appears on floor trains, trolleys, Joy Line and the M10000 sets, years before the acquisition.

[4] When it comes to quality and quantity, Louis Marx and Company is considered "the most important producer of inexpensive American toy trains".

Cast iron was unwieldy, heavy, and not well-suited to proper detail or model proportions and gradually it was replaced by pressed tin.

[21] Marx offered a variety of tin vehicles, from carts to dirigibles — the company would lithograph toy patterns on large sheets of tinplated steel.

[22] Marx was long known for its car and truck toys, and the company would take small steps to renew the popularity of an old product.

Popeye pushing a barrel of spinach eventually became the 1940 Tidy Tim Street Cleaner and Charlie McCarthy in his "Benzine Buggy".

[24] Lithographed tin tanks, airplanes, police motorcycles, tractors, trains, luxury liners, and rocket ships were all produced in bright colors.

Pressed tin and steel remained in the form of Buicks, Nashes, or other semi-futuristic sedans, race cars, and trucks that didn't replicate any actual vehicles.

The first series, in 1950, included inexpensive 4-inch replicas of early 1950s cars, both foreign and domestic, like Talbot, Volkswagen, Jaguar, Studebaker, Ford, Chevrolet, GMC Van and others.

The "Fix All" series was introduced, whose main attraction was larger plastic vehicles (about 14 inches long) that could be taken apart and put back together with included tools and equipment.

A 1953 Pontiac convertible (erroneously identified on packaging as a sedan), and a 1953 Mercury Monterey station wagon which featured an articulated drive-line.

Everything from the pistons to the crankshaft to the rear axle gears were visible through clear plastic, and wood-trim decals for the sides finished off this marvelous model.

[29] In 1948, the Hudson Motor Car Company made a detailed in-house promotional model of its "step down" 4-door Commodore for exclusive use by their dealers.

[31][32] Soon after, Marx fabricated an injection mold of Hudson's more precise model and marketed this simplified version as a more inexpensive mechanized toy.

The clear windows of the original were replaced with a single, stamped metal piece with lithographed images of cartoonish policemen or firemen.

After newer, more modern American cars appeared, the Marx Hudson quickly became obsolete, resulting in an oversupply on retail toy shelves.

A well-preserved Marx police or fire chief Hudson with original box will still bring from $50 to $100 in today's market, depending on condition.

Into the 1970s, Marx jumped on several bandwagons, for example, plastic pull string funny cars of typical 1:25 scale model size, but this was not quick enough to save the company.

While some of the earlier toys had a simpler Tootsietoy style single casting, newer cars were colored in bright chrome paints with decals and fast axle wheels.

Plastic O scale train cars and scenery using former Marx molds were previously produced by MDK and are now marketed under the "K-Line by Lionel" brand name.