Balky Pony & Cart

Bulky pony in cart, circa 1940’s, 9 ½ inches long by 3 ¼ inches wide 5 ½ inches high.

According to Greenberg’s guide to Marx toys volume one: “The driver wears a wide brim hat red shirt and blue overall. He is removable and fits into the seat with a metal piece attached to his hips. The horse is dappled gray brown with blonde mean. He wears a red yellow and black bridle. One wooden wheel is on his left front foot. The horses attach’s the cart by steel rods. The cart has a coil of rope near its back and its top and on the right wheel.

The horse and cart toy is a good example of how Marx used parts of other toys to make this new toy. Both the part and the driver of this toy are similar to the wood pattern. Variation of the bulky mule. The horse and cart toy has a cart with a straight front, which has an extra curled piece on the top. The horse is the same as the one that pulls the milk, wagon and horse toy described later in that chapter. The wood pattern lithography on the cart and wheels is the same on that on the roof of the 1930s Marx Popeye and olive oil jigger even to the use of the same coil of rope, which appears on the back of the wagon and on its right front wheel. Marx was known to let nothing go to waste and it’s very possible that leftovers look lithographed sheets from the Popeye toys were used on the horse cart toy.

A variation of the horse cart, and driver has a differently shaped dark tan horse, a horse of this shape in black, and possibly in tan, also pulls the milk, wagon and horse toy. The horse and cart variation has a differently colored cart, which is blue with a yellow interior and yellow wheels edged in black the cart in the variation, lacks the extra curve piece on the first variation. The base of the cart is red with a mechanism on the underside. The farmer driver is dressed in tan overalls. The toy came in a plain box, entitled mechanical horse, and cart with driver. “