1930 Tricky Taxi (UK Version)

Tricky Taxi (made in Dudley, England): circa 1930's/1940’s, 4 ½ inches long, 

This is a rare example of a Marx Tricky Taxi that was made in Dudley England. While the American version is lithographed in two colors the English made versions only came in a single color. The colors that are known to exist are blue, green, red & yellow. Unique to the English version is a rather complicated mechanism that allows the toy to do its tricky action. The American version relied on a wheel that is horizontally placed in the center of the toy that which drives the toy in a direction when it gets to the edge of the table. The English version has a hinged foot that activates one of the rear wheels which then spins the toy in a different direction (see the picture of the bottom side).  The hinged foot does not engage the drive wheel when the taxi is going in a straight line, but when the taxi reaches the end of the table it drops into place and subsequently engages then turns the toy.  

It is difficult to know the year the toy was made because there is limited information as to when the Marx factories began production. According to Greenberg’s Guide to MARX Trans Vol 1, Eric Matzke said the original idea behind the expansion of selling toys in foreign countries was to share the dies and stamping tools. The dies would be sent overseas when the American markets had grown tired of the individual toy. The foreign factories would then start production up. In the case of the Tricky Taxi I think Marx started the production up but did not share the same dies, the evidence is the different mechanisms used in the Tricky Taxi’s. 

 This idea originated with Louis Marx one night when he was riding in a yellow taxi on the streets of New York City. It was a rainy night and the cab skidded around and almost in a circle and ended up against a railing, no one was hurt. He order the tricky taxi into production and it was made so that if it were played with on the kitchen table it would not drop off the edge of the table but would turn around and come back, most of the time the car works as intended for once in a while it goes off the table so it’s best to be ready to rescue the taxi before falls to the floor.

 Eric Matzke describes the car is having a lithograph steel body with two drive wheels at the rear and one pivoting wheel under the front to Perform 180 degree turn, the car has dummy front wheels and tinplated bumpers and a grill.  It comes in green with black and white trim red with black-and-white trim orange with black-and-white trim red with black and yellow trim red and white black-and-white yellow and black and less commonly purple on the door is tricky taxi by 1948 the taxi had a slightly varied design on the side with a line of checkers extending from the rear to the window windshield and taxi” above the windshield the checkered version was still being advertised in 1950.

Prior to 1948 toy came in a plane on illustrated box. From 1948 on the toys box in orange green white and black reads tricky taxi in large letters. The taxi is poised at the table’s edge. Other leading lettering reads” what keeps it from running off of the edge” in a circle is “Fun Mystery Novelty” and illustrations on another side of the box shows a cartoon like figure made of gears cogs and other parts holding the Marx logo the front back and sides of the taxi are illustrated.

The tricky taxi is easily available but unfortunately this is not true for the base as well as these vehicles. The 10 x 6” lithographed rectangular base was not advertised after 1935. The base has very attractive illustrations, which shows a busy street scene with traffic coming from all directions, a horse and cart, an ambulance, a police car, and a fire engine all on the street, but no taxi. As well as the vehicles, there are crowds of people with some even on the buildings roofs. “Tricky Taxi on busy street” is on the upper right hand corner with the Marx logo and “trademark patent pending Louis Marks and Company New York USA” underneath. A Tricky Fire Chief was also made with the finally illustrated base period

There appeared to be two patents for this toy the earliest one number 200-1625 apply for in February 1935 was by Heinrich Mueller of Nuremberg Germany. 

Marx either copied or acquired this pattern from Mueller it is known that Louis Marx often made trips to Germany, later in June 1935 Marx put out a similar patent number 209-6333 under his own name both the drawings and text from this patent are more complicated than the earlier Muller patent. Bases are not shown in either of these patent illustrations.