July 4, 2019 – Man of Tin blog

GAmerica, America … no this is not a post about the Women’s World Cup.

CDA5006D-0957-4F9B-B374-1EBBE418382A — My battered Marx Boy Scout finally gets some paint after forty plus years. Still some gloss varnish and finishing touches needed.

To celebrate the 4th of July, here is a short blog post on the Marx Boy Scouts Of America figures. Of which I have exactly – one. No idea why I have it, it’s just part of the family collection.

Researching early Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts for my Wide Games on the tabletop, I frequently come across references to the American branch of the scouting family. They developed in different ways in a different culture than how scouting and guiding happened in Britain.

After 40+ years I have finally painted a fragile survivor in my family / childhood collection, what I discovered to be a Marx 54mm to 60mm Plastic Scout. He used to hang out with the Cowboys in my childhood games, his fragile scout hatchet long gone.

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The whole range of these American figures, the Boy Scouts Of America, can be seen individually here on this great Marx Collectors site including a superb tin litho club house: https://www.marxwildwest.com/boy%20scouts.html

This fragile old figure needs a final coat of gloss acrylic, to get that toy soldier look, then final varnishing. There are some good details to pick out such as a torch or rope loop on the belt.

B4B74835-D54F-4464-BD88-1B6ADA9B3695 — Rear details of Boy Scout equipment and my metal Boy Scout moulds.

I could drill through the hand and insert a Boy Scout staff or stave but I think he is probably too fragile for this. Part of one foot and the base have already gone.

I often wonder how we acquired just a single American plastic scout figure. I never remember any others as a child.

Coming from a scouting family, he might have been bought by or given to my cub master Dad. He might also have come from a 1960s / 1970s job lot of odd plastic figures that my late Dad bought for us all (c. Very Early 1970s) from a neighbouring family when their boys were grown up and beyond such childish things. (This stage thankfully hasn’t happened to me or many of my blog readers yet).

DD8A00E9-93B0-47FC-BB8F-F86DDABB7030 — Copyright image: Marxwildwest.com website

Here is a glimpse of the gorgeous tin club house, a tiny part of a large and interesting Marx website. Looking through this website, I realised that I have or had no other Marx figures in my childhood toy collection. This makes the single Marx Boy Scout more of a mystery!