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Rex Mars 4" Original? Soft Gold Plastic


space.trucks

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Soft pliant semi-translucent gold plastic with a sort of marbled look, nicely aged, just the right amount of wear. All I know for sure is it was molded in a very different plastic than the recast.

 

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Confirmed recast in silver.

 

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Note wear to helmet notch, one of the attributes mention on the Marx Lane website as a problem with the original figures.

 

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Confirmed recast helmet at right.

 

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The discoloration speckles give me hope.

 

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The flashing on the hand of the recast is the best "hint". The hand on the gold dude is trimmed much nicer & the individual fingers more distinctive.

 

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Sweet.

 

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Helmet notch eroded from use.

 

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All opinions welcome!

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very nice Astronauts, albeit retro look, I never seen a space helmet like that design.

Looks like vacuum bells.

I like the silver one better. The detail shows up much better.🚀

 

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12 hours ago, Golddalek said:

very nice Astronauts, albeit retro look, I never seen a space helmet like that design.

Looks like vacuum bells.

I like the silver one better. The detail shows up much better.🚀

 

Yar if you ask me the ultimate plastic space figures, first produced 1956/57 (?). The recasts are a fairly easy score, more on them here:
 

 

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Right on man, appreciate your sharing the insight. Only things I've seen to compare him with are the recasts and it is a very different animal, beyond that not sure what to think. Color is odd, plastic mighty soft compared to the vintage 70mm's I've coped. Original 4" described as cast in metallic blue & green, white and a silver, which I believe is same for the 70mm. Don't think I've even seen a real one of these yet. I'd also been wondering about the lack of competition. Came a little too easy but the vendor was not toy-oriented, had other vintage figures but mostly general estate stuff. Somebody'd had it for a long time, now it's my turn.

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Checked with Eric at MarxWildWest and he thought the color was fine but is not familiar with the 4" line and sent me to Kent Sprecher. Kent's diagnosis was Marx or Plastimarx. So flip a coin, either is as likely and I'm done for the time being.

 

A YouTube viewer had told me of a well-known Marx authority/collector who actually lives in my area and I had been thinking of looking him up to pick his brain on Marx related issues. Will see if I can scare up an email address.

 

And just as a by the way & not that it impacts on anything, there is a set of what very likely are originals up on the 'b4y, out of my current budget means so go nuts, shouldn't be hard to find (think I've got enough of these for now ...). But I knicked a pix of two in the same pose which look very different:

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The one on the left more closely resembles the recasts, the one on the right definitely an original (vendor inherited them from his father and both played with them as kids). His mouth looks different, face looks altered, upper chest area is different, texture of his lower portions are different. Hand holding the radio might just be playworn but it too has a different texture to it. Plastic not as reflective but again that might just be wear. Very cool.

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  • 2 months later...

Currently up for grabs, described as "soft gold plastic". Has provenance to the Marx factory as a sample: Staple hole on raised arm where it had been attached to a display board. Sitting it out, have other priorities but still find it encouraging.

 

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  • 1 year later...

The silver figure on the right was just taken out of the mold too soon.  Without proper cooling the molten, still-expanding interior mass of a figure tries to fight its way out of the stiffer, cooling exterior.  This pushes areas of the surface, sometimes enough to make them bulge, but in most cases just enough to make the surface details smooth out with the continuing heat exposure from within.  The worst is when the injector moved an air bubble into the mold.  Then you can get ruptures that cause those familiar mold depressions.  That gold figure looks sharp!

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