COLLECTING THE MARX
MICKEY MOUSE METEOR TRAIN SET
By Jim Engelage
In the early 1950s Marx produced the Mickey Mouse Meteor Train set. It is a crossover collectible appealing to Disneyana collectors, tin toy collectors, and train collectors. The early version was a four-piece set including the locomotive, tender, gondola car and caboose (shown here). Later, a boxcar was added which resulted in the more limited five-piece version. The locomotive has a detachable key. Some versions have a rare flint mechanism that produces sparks out of the engine smoke stack thus earning the meteor train its name. Other versions have a ringing bell (scarce). The bell and the sparks operate only while the train is speeding around the track.
The Mickey Mouse Meteor train comes with eight curved, and two straight pieces of “O” gauge two-rail track. The four-piece set measures 35” long and the five-piece set measures 43” long. The most desirable version is the five-piece set with the locomotive that shoots sparks out of the smoke stack and has the ringing bell.
1. LOCOMOTIVE
The two engineers at the controls are Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Lithographed on the sides are Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Minnie Mouse, and two mouse kids. Goofy is hanging out on the top of the locomotive cab. The locomotive measures 10½“ long and is marked on the top, “Mar Lines” and “Copyrighted by Walt Disney Enterprises” and on the bottom is stamped with the Marx logo and “Made in the United States of America.”
2. TENDER
Mickey Mouse is on one side and Donald Duck is on the other side of the yellow tender and Happy, one of the dwarfs is on the top. The tender and each of the other cars are marked “Mar Lines” and measure 7¼” long. The inscription on each side reads “Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse Meteor.”
3. GONDOLA CAR
The light blue gondola car features Thumper, Goofy, Pluto, Jiminy Cricket and four of the seven dwarfs.
4. BOXCAR
The yellow boxcar has a green sliding door on each side. On the boxcar are Dumbo, the Three Little Pigs, Mickey, Figaro the Cat and Joe Carioca the Parrot. There is the number 1476 on one side of the boxcar. In small print an inscription on the boxcar reads, “Copyrighted Walt Disney Productions.”
5. CABOOSE
On one side of the orange caboose are Pluto, Daisy Duck and Pinocchio and on the other side are two bears—one is riding a unicycle. On top is Flower the Skunk, Bambi and Timothy Q. Mouse. There is a number on one side under the window—691521.
6. ORIGINAL BOX
The Mickey Mouse Meteor Train set came in a generic Marx Mechanical Train Set box that was also used as the original box for Marx freight trainsets. This is the only example known of a Disney toy or train that did not come in a Disney-themed box.
In 1999 at the Disneyana Convention which was held at Walt Disney World in Orlando a limited-edition electric train reproduction of the Mickey Mouse Meteor Train set that was for sale to attendees. It was produced by the New Marx Company in Illinois. This five-piece set was limited to a production of only 300 train sets and they were priced without the track and transformer for $630. Each set was numbered and came with a Certificate of Authenticity. These sets sold out in less than three hours. The one distinctive feature of the reproduction set is that it has a light on the front of the locomotive whereas the early 50’s set does not. The three-rail “O” gauge track oval with eight curved and four straight pieces and a 20-amp transformer were sold separately. The original box for this reproduction set did come in a Disney-themed box and has divided compartments for each of the five pieces.
Jim may be reached at jengelage@tampabay.rr.com.
Add-Photos were provided courtesy of Morphy Auctions.