ABOUT
Louis Marx (1896-1982) was known as "the Henry Ford of the toy industry." The company that bore his name was, at its height in the 1950s, the largest toy company in the world. One of his great successes was a line of "Marx Miniature Figures." "Have you all of them?" the packaging succinctly asked. Described in contemporary Marx catalogs with such vital attributes as "lifelike," "sculptured," "washable," "unbreakable," and "action" (not exactly grammatically appropriate but more accurate than "unbreakable"), the complete selection included "generals, religious, royalty, cowboys, Indians, Disney, comics, soldiers, knights, sports, and animals." But Marx's crowning achievement was his set of U.S. Presidents.
Some time in 1955, Marx decided he wanted to impress and honor his old friend Dwight Eisenhower, who was then president. He chose to do this by memorializing him and his predecessors in injection molded plastic. Sculpted by the Ferriot Brothers out of Ohio and mass produced in a Marx factory in Glen Dale, West Virginia), the presidents stood 60 millimeters tall (about 2 3/4 inches) and were made in a white, unpainted resin. Each figurine bore the president's name on the front of the base and his number and the dates of his term on the back. They were released in a complete set of 33 or as five chronological 7-figure subsets including a second pose of President Eisenhower and two versions of First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. A miniature version of the figures (about 1 1/2 inches tall) was also produced and sold with build-it-yourself models of either the White House or the U.S. Capitol building. Some sets even came with five "Hobby Color" paints, a brush, and detailed instructions on how to "Paint Your Presidents."
Marx prepared for the end of Eisenhower's term by making prototypes of both his vice president, Richard Nixon, and his 1956 Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson. Both figurines were made in small quantities and have appeared on the collector's market, as has a 1960 "candidate" pose of John F. Kennedy. Nixon and Kennedy eventually found their way into the complete set when they were elected president in their own right (Kennedy did get a new head sculpt, however, and he was joined by a pose of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy). At some point during the Kennedy administration, Marx began producing the figurines in a painted version, using facilities in Hong Kong. After Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson was added to the set. Six unsuccessful candidates were also made in small quantities; two poses of Barry Goldwater in 1964; and Robert Kennedy, Charles Percy, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller, and George Romney in 1968. A much larger number of 1968 Democratic nominee (and then-vice president) Hubert H. Humphrey were produced in tandem with the Republican nominee Nixon figurine because that election was simply too close to call, though Marx was himself a Nixon supporter. (Another piece of trivia: Marx's daughter, Patricia, married military analyst Daniel Ellsberg whose leaking of "The Pentagon Papers" seriously damaged Nixon's credibility, much to Marx's chagrin.)
In 1972, the Marx Toy Company was sold to Quaker Oats which eventually sold the Marx properties to a British concern that filed for bankruptcy in 1980. Marx himself died soon after and the company assets have changed hands several times since then including an incarnation called "Marx Toys and Entertainment" which produced both reissues of classic Marx Toys and headlines when several corporate officers were indicted by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock price manipulation. Unfortunately, except for the 1968 candidate Reagan figurine, the presidential line ended for Marx with Richard Nixon. Still, tens of thousands of these individual figures and sets were sold in the 1960s and '70s. They were positively ubiquitous, selling in toy stores and hobby shops, as service station and supermarket premiums, and through mail order ads in national magazines.
Today, thanks to so many children who simply weren't interested enough to even take their presidents out of their cellophane bags, hundreds of sets change hands yearly on eBay, most of them in excellent to mint condition. Toy collectors, educators, presidential memorabilia fanatics, and other compulsive sorts scour the listings to find the sets in their most complete form, nicest condition, and best preserved packaging (unsold store stock vs. grandma’s attic); size and color variations (45mm and 60mm, “hand-painted by artists” and golden plastic); fabrication location (U.S., Hong Kong, and Taiwan); the accompanying booklets and the Styrofoam display stands (two of each); as well as the pose variations (Ike bent at both elbows and in his inaugural tux), the errors (Taft’s term did not end in 1919 so Marx fixed it), and even the factory prototypes (like a metal 1968-vintage nameless figurine that could be a vague likeness of well-known Senator Eugene McCarthy or a good likeness of the vaguely-known Senator George Smathers). Yet for all, there is still the distant but persistent call of the Marx logo, "Have you all of them?" For more than a generation the answer has always been "No." We don't have Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, either George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. We have not them all.
That's where I came in. Having too much free time in 2003, I re-sculpted the heads of the 1968 candidates to make custom versions of the missing post-Nixon presidents. Humphrey became Ford; Romney to Bush; Clinton from Rockefeller, etc. Anyone with a little patience, some modest sculpting talent, an interest in learning latex rubber molding and plastic resin casting, and an all-consuming drive to complete a childhood toy set would have done the same. Fortunately, for hundreds of fellow obsessives who bought copies of these figurines from me, I did it first so they didn't have to. By 2008 I was perfecting whole-body remodeling, and soon the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon battle was rematched in the plastic personages of Obama and John McCain. My last literal transformation came four years later when 1968's George Romney became 2012's Mitt. With the nomination of Hillary Clinton in 2016, because there was no existing Marx figurine in a suffragette white pantsuit, I engaged the services of Pretty in Plastic, a design and fabrication studio in North Hollywood, California, and the artistry of Phil Ramirez to render Secretary Clinton in 3D. Though my first pass at candidate Donald Trump was an adaptation of candidate Charles Percy, after the election, all of the non-Marx figurines were redesigned in 3D by Phil and mass produced by Design Masters in Toano, Virginia, under the direction of Julie B. at PiP. With the addition of Joe Biden in 2021, this has become the method of production for the foreseeable future.
Whether you believe in only the canonical 36 or in my humble additions, to fit that last golden base into the appropriate slot on the display stand (an eco-friendly advance on the Styrofoam original) is a proud and even patriotic sensation. Standing over this hallowed Hall of Presidents is to know a legion of the most significant and accomplished of collectibles for, among toy soldiers, this a veritable and venerable army of commanders-in-chief. Louis Marx would have expected nothing less.
-Patric M. Verrone
Pacific Palisades, California