It's A Small World After All: Marx Paint-A-Village and More Marx HO Scale Buildings - Marx HO Barn - Medium Green HP

We start winding down the 'Small World' series with a look at the Marx Paint-A-Village set, also from 1952. Just a few pages from where the Guid-A-Traffic set was listed in the 1952 Sears Christmas Wishbook was this set. Many of the small vehicles, some of the buildings, as well as the HO scale figures and accessories have already been posted here on the blog.

This Paint-A-Village set was a complete town in a box but its vehicles were still as mis-matched in size as the Guid-A-Traffic set. The vehicles here trend towards smaller-than-HO and of course the plastic train is w-a-a-y smaller than an HO scale train. NOTE: I never acquired the train so it will not be a part of this 'Small World' series - sorry!

-The village includes:

  Colonial house x2

  Ranch style house x2

  Barn

  Church

  Service Station

  General Store

  People, animals, soft plastic road signs and accessories x18

  Trees and hedges x20

  3-rail fence pieces x14

  Vehicle x7

  Train 6pcs

  Set of paints and brush

Enjoy! Opa Fritz

The Barn

3.75" (9.52cm) D x 2.5" (6.35cm) W x 2.75" 6.98cm) H

A comparison of green's - 'light' and 'medium'.

This shot does not represent the entire farm grouping but was a way to see the size relationship between trees and animals. 

The lighter colored barn was just covered a few days ago on 15 Feb, so today we'll check out the slightly darker shade. Marx normally did a really good job of representing farms and had a wide variety of farm playset's, so it surprises me that a silo was never a part of this HO scale set.

It's A Small World After All: Marx #6652 Guid-A-Traffic Set (1952) Pt 2c The Buildings - Barn - Light Green HP

This light green barn came in my Guid-A-Traffic set but I had also acquired a barn in a darker green which will get posted at a later date. As far as I know, Marx did not make a silo to go with their HO scale barns. That's a very unusual decision to not include the silo, but there's nothing we can do today unless you have a 3D printer and can make your own.. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

3.75" (9.52cm) D x 2.5" (6.35cm) W x 2.75" 6.98cm) H

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