I needed a couple days to wrap my head around this next phase of "It's A Small World". Trying to put together a cohesive story from many layers of information is a bit tricky. As I'll be concentrating on Marx for this next phase, it's probably best we start with the No. 6652 Guid-A-Traffic set from 1952. You'll notice Marx spelled 'guide' wrong by leaving out the final 'e' but that's okay - the set more than makes up for it it fun! The premise of the set is simple: provide a village complete with buildings, people, figures, and one giant-as-hell wind-up car to drive around through it!
By 1952, HO scale was beginning to really take off in popularity and this is the first time (I believe) that Marx started to offer some accessories that were made to HO scale (aka 1/87th scale). Granted, the wind-up car is oversized but this was a stand-alone fun, playset not directly tied into HO scale trains - yet! That would change in the years to come. Enjoy! Opa Fritz
1952 Sears Christmas Wishbook extract showing the Guid-A-Traffic set
Set Contents (as shown or stated in the ad)
4 houses
1952 Buick sedan
33+ft of rigid and non-rigid track
2 switches
2 turnouts
crossover
22 hedge pieces
19 figures (people, animals, etc.)
Trees (six shown) 3"H
"...other pieces in proportion"
That "...other pieces in proportion" is a nice way of saying they'll include whatever else they feel like! That's okay, it's all fun.
The box itself is the typically unadorned Marx box of the era and made of lightweight cardboard.
The catalog illustration showed four houses but my set came with a house, church, barn, and filling station. While the buildings, figures, trees, and hedges were all scaled to HO, the fence pieces were standard Marx O-gauge fences.
The fence sections aren't shown in the ad above so must be part of that "...other pieces in proportion"
These pages show the wind-up car driving through a selection buildings Marx marketed for their O-gauge trains not the HO scale buildings included in this set.
These are Marx O-gauge buildings and would look great with the car included in the set
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