GALION – Larry Lovely has his own “Toy Story.”
He’s been collecting toys for decades. But Lovely prefers the prized playsets manufactured by Louis Marx & Company. A series of boxes bursting with some of the toy world’s finest tin lithography buildings and dozens of molded plastic figures and accessories.
The same toys he played with as a child.
“It just brings back a lot of good childhood memories,” said Lovely, 70, who got his first Marx playset – “Fort Apache” – when he was four. “I’d go to a friend’s house, and we’d take the toys outside and set them up. You get the fever on something like that.”
The sets were manufactured in the 1950’s and 1960’s, many modeled after television shows and historical events – “Gunsmoke,” “Wagon Train,” and others. They were sold in dime stores and in the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs for about $5 a box.
“This stuff was cool when I was a kid,” said Lovely, who grew up in nearby Blooming Grove. “They’re just like baseball cards and comic books. Now they’re collectibles.”
Lovely’s collection includes the “Roy Rogers Western Town,” complete with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans figures, as well as “Gunsmoke Dodge City,” a single-story western town made in 1960 featuring Marshal Matt Dillion, Miss Kitty, a stagecoach, and hundreds of intricate pieces.
His favorite though is “The Lone Ranger Ranch,” manufactured in 1957, which he found on eBay. Still in its original box with the instruction sheet, the elaborate playset comes with the masked Lone Ranger, Tonto, horses, cowboys, Indians, and an Old West cabin scene.
Lovely said he started his vintage collection back in the mid-1980’s after a friend – also a collector – got him interested. He’s been buying, selling, and trading ever since. “But now they’re getting harder to find in the original boxes. You can still find a lot of used pieces and parts.”
Lovely has traveled to Chicago and Iowa to buy rare pieces. He and his wife, Rena, attend the annual Marx Toy Convention in Wheeling, West Virginia, in June as well as toy shows in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Lafayette, Indiana put on by the Midwest Toy Soldier Group.
Last September he acquired another Western – the “Official Wagon Train” playset created in 1959. Lovely played with the downsized version as a kid. “I liked the cowboys, Army men,” he said.
His treasure trove of playthings also includes “Giant Blue & Gray” – the largest Civil War set Marx made – and “Rin Tin Tin at Fort Apache,” based on the T.V. show starring Rusty and his German Shepherd dog. “This show was on Saturday mornings. I remember watching it as a kid.”
Lovely subscribes to “Playset Magazine” and is finalizing plans to host his first toy show – North Central Ohio Toy/Toy Soldier Show Sunday, Sept. 10, at the Crawford County Fairgrounds youth building. He said dealers from four states are expected to attend.
Because “toying” around is his thing. “I buy, sell, and trade all the time,” Lovely said. “It’s just a nice, clean hobby. It’s like bringing back our childhood.”
