Off Shore Muse

A T. Cohn Superior Toy Company, founded by Tobias Cohn in 1900 was a prominent toy company later faced bankruptcy in 1968 being purchased by Brumberger, Inc.

In 1948, Tobias Cohn introduced this elegant Spanish themed house as their first dollhouse. The detail is wonderful. The lattice windows which are fully functional are a wonderful touch. The house was unique with its tiled, pitched roof with its centered chimney. Window boxes and shrubs decorate the lovely exterior.

Close-Up Photo of the tiled pitched roof.

Chimney with tabs

Inside, the house boasted a kitichen with white tiled walls, a dining room with hardwood floors covered by an area rug, a fully carpeted living room and upstairs a nursery with a cute circus motif, a bathroom with elegant swans adoring the walls and a master bedroom with sunny diamond patterned walls. This house was unique because it is the only tin dollhouse built with a separate dining room. The house was sold furnished with 3/4 inch Superior furniture or unfurnished.

In the late 1940s Marx began to produce metal lithographed dollhouses with plastic furniture. Louis Marx and Company founded in 1919 by Louis and David Marx, produced dollhouses as part of their toy empire, know for their "give the customer more toy for less money" philsophy with variations of the Colonial style being popular.

The company in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression, seized the opportunity to acquire manufacturing plants in Erie, PA and in Girard, PA. The Erie plant, opening in 1933,was the oldest and largest, followed by the Girard plant which was acquired in 1934 with the purchase of Girard Model Works which produced toy trains for the company.

In 1921, Louis Marx & Company had purchased the used tooling and product rights to two of the old Strauss products that were thought to have run their course: The Climbing Monkey and the Mechanical Minstrel Singer.* Marx' salesmanship brought these two products back to life. Manufacturing millions of units in Erie, the factory became known as the Monkey Works among the workers and residents, alike. The Erie and Girard plants employed over 8,000 full time domestic workers.

By the mid-20th century, the company had factories worldwide and occupied a number of Erie facilities in addition to the 19th and Cascade Street factory. Also a plant at West 18th and Raspberry Streets, a credit union at West 20th and Cascade Streets and a warehouse in the old Bucyrus Erie building on West 12th Street.

Louis Marx and Company

"Drummer Boy"

Tin-Wind-Up Toy

Circa 1950

The Marx Toys Logo

Drummer Boy with his Original Box

*Louis Marx, the founder of Louis Marx and Company, was known for his "Mechanical Minstrel Singer" toy which he brought to market with bright colors and bigger models, selling 8 million of them along with "Jocko, The Climbing Monkey". The "Mechanical Minstrel Singer" was a highlight of Marx's company featuring a figure that would move and "sing" when wound up. The sale of these toys were due to Marx's salesmanship and the toy's appeal which lead to a huge success!

The Marx wind-up toys were primarily produced in the Erie factory. The factory produced mechanical wind-up toys and mechanical trains. During the 1950s the Erie factory produced millions of mechanical cars, tanks and tractors annually. In the 1960s, the Erie factory also began to produce blow-molded plastics including many of the ride-on toys and furniture for the dollhouses. In 1975, the Erie factory was closed.

In 2016, a fire broke out at the former Marx Toy Factory located at 227 East Hathaway Street in Girard where toy trains were produced. At its peak, Louis Marx and Company operated three manufacturing plans in the United States: Erie PA, Girard PA and Glen Dale, West Virginia.

Louis Marx acquired the Girard Model Works in 1934 which was located at the Hathaway Street address. It closed in 1980.

"I must be a Santa Claus by heart, because I really enjoyed working there and would probably be working there still if the company hadn't closed. For every 100 ideas, only three actually became Marx Toys. That's the rule of thumb that they gave me. Ideas would go to design and for consideration on how they'd be manufactured. Sometimes they couldn't figure out how to make it or got into an idea and found it would be too costly to make for the price point that we needed to see it for."

Kim Stormer, Manager of Production, Planning and Inventory Control

Stormer was employed at Marx Toys in Girard for nine years until the plant closed in January 1980. Many of factory workers were brought in from Brooklyn, NY.

Glen Dale, West Virginia Factory

The facility was the former quarter mile long Fokker Aircraft Plant.

This location made the Glen Dale plant the largest facility. The Glen Dale factory manufactured more toys than any other Marx plant, helping Marx become the largest toy maker in the world in the 1940s and 1950s. By 1938, Marx employed more than 2,000 workers at its factories, warehouses and other Erie and Girard facilities at their peak in the 1940s and 1950s.

Louis Marx

In 1955, Mr. Marx was known as the Toy King of America and his company was the largest maker of toys in the world! Because of his genius, he became a millionaire at the age of 24! Millions of durable Marx toys were sold through stores and mail order catalogs.

Marx was known by numerous nicknames included "Toycoon" and "the Henry Ford of the toy industry".

A metal "Silver Dollar Music Hall" manufactured by Marx Toys is displayed at the Hagen History Center in Erie, Pennsylvania.

From 1933-1975, the Erie factories of Louis Marx & Company pumped out millions of toys on Santa's behalf. Marx built his empire from sheets of litographed, tinplated sheets which were cut, pressed and folded into a stunning array of shapes and forms for toys and for dollhouses which were assembled with various panels.