1980s GDR Musical Nativity & 2012 Asian Christmas Trees

Last year Toys and Stuff featured a vintage tin-litho Nativity set from Marx. This year's Nativity selection isn't quite that old but does date from the 1980s. It's a hand-carved Nativity with Swiss musical movement that was made in the old German Democratic Republic (Communist East Germany) and exported to West Germany and measures 5 1/4" (13.3cm) diameter x 7 3/4" (19.7cm) H. The set was made in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) region famous for its wonderful wood carvings. Many of the classic types of Christmas decorations come from this region such as nutcrackers, Christmas tree ornaments and so on.

For a hi-res view of the action, visit the YouTube link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cogCcByUx4&feature=youtu.be

The tree shown in the .gif at the top is part of a 3-piece set of Lucite color-changing LED trees which I believe may be from Hong Kong - but don't quote me on that (I still have the box somewhere but can't find it). They are 8 1/2" (21.6cm), 10 1/2" (26.7cm), and 12 1/2" (31.8cm) high and were available in stores last year but I haven't seen them in stores since. I had wanted to buy more of them but never got around to it but after some searching I noticed they're available on-line so perhaps I'll get a couple more.

The Twinkle effect is from Google's 'Auto Awesome' feature in its Picassa web albums.

Marx Nativity Set

Toys & Stuff will be taking Tuesday, Christmas Day off.

In keeping with the season we bring you the wonderful little Marx Nativity set which came out in the late 1950s. It worked out well this year as Monday's are normally reserved for tin and today is Christmas Eve. The manger is essentially the same stamping as Marx's Rev War Tavern but with some modifications of course and measures 10 1/2" (26.7cm) L x 7" (17.8cm) H x 4 1/5" (11.4cm) W. It is equipped with a plug-in light and comes with nine people and five animals in a white hard plastic. I ended up buying two of these. The first one I bought had nearly all of the figures glued to floor of the manger. This was good and bad I s'pose. The bad part of course is you can't arrange the figures to suit. The good thing is that the halo's on the figures, which are very often broken, have remained intact. Some time after buying this first set I came across a second manger without its light or figures however I was able to acquire Mexican repos of the Marx figures. The Mexican repos come in a softer, but more brittle plastic in a yellowish-cream color and they have a lot of flashing around the edges which requires careful cleaning. This was a terrific offering from Marx and I'm glad to be able to share it with you. Enjoy!

My Angel not only lost her halo but her wings got clipped as well!

Mexican Marx repos

My box was r-e-a-l rough