It's A Small World After All: Marx Paint-A-Village and More Marx HO Scale Buildings - Marx HO Service Station - Cream HP

The HO scale service station - in blue - was part of the Guid-A-Traffic review and posted here back on 16 Feb. This station is in a color that collectors refer to as 'cream' while Marx referred to it as 'ivory' and I'm afraid some of these pictures make it appear to be yellowish. That yellow tinge is the result of a) how my camera 'reads' colors and b) editing. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

5.25" (13.33cm) W x 4" (10.16cm) D x 1.5" (3.81cm) H

It's A Small World After All: Marx #6652 Guid-A-Traffic Set (1952) Pt 2d The Buildings - Service Station - Blue HP

While this is the last of the four buildings that were in my Guid-A-Traffic set, the other Marx HO buildings in the collection will be posted later this week or early next. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

5.25" (13.33cm) W x 4" (10.16cm) D x 1.5" (3.81cm) H

You see that little green car to the right? What the heck is it? Where did it go? Hmmm, now why did I not photograph it and where is it now?

Dang!

It's A Small World After All: Marx #6652 Guid-A-Traffic Set (1952) Pt 1

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