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Figures

Babyland Building

Accessories

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Featured in PFPC Issue 43 of 1996, the Babyland Nursery playset was released in 1955.  It clearly was one of the few Marx playsets that was aimed at girls rather than boys.  Other than the nursery building, the set's contents were meager and included nothing that was ever used in other playsets.

I've never seen one of these sets in person, but from the photos below, the interior of the building looks awfully drab for a nursery...more like a hospital than a  nursery.  No toys, no fairy tale pictures on the wall, no color of any kind.  I guess that's what you get when you have a bunch of men design a nursery!

PFPC reports that the Babyland figures and accessories were also sold as a group on a blister card.  While the accessories in the set were white, those sold on the card were pink or blue.


Figures

The set's figure group included a nurse and six babies, each baby posed in a different position.  The nurse came with a separate paper hat -- assumedly a nurse's hat -- which is probably nearly impossible to find today.  Photos of the nurse in the PFPC article appear to have her balancing an apple on her head, but I suppose the "apple" is what held that separate hat onto her head!  Although the playset and figures might be considered related to the Marx dollhouses, the figures are notably smaller in scale than dollhouse figures.

1.  Nurse Second photo with baby #7 below

2.  Baby with bottle	3.  Baby with rattle	4.  Baby with cup

5.  Baby, sitting	6.  Baby, lying down	7.  Baby, lying down and waving

Babyland Nursery building

At the center of  the Nursery Playset is the nursery building, made in the company's usual lithographed, tin-plated pressed steel.  Its basic design is identical to the Marx Pet Shop and Schoolhouse buildings.

The back side of the building is open, and both the inside and outside are lithographed. The outside of the building is colorful with the Babyland business name printed in children's blocks and flowers on all sides; the inside -- as mentioned above -- is extremely blah.  Similar to early Marx service stations, pieces of clear acetate were included to cover the building's two front windows.  In the nursery set, the acetate was printed with red lines that divided each window into 20 window panes.

Babyland Nursery Photo courtesy of Shelley, Ebay ID shelleyann1976

Interior of Babyland Nursery from the back side Note the metal counter insert at left side that is part of the tin litho Photo courtesy of Shelley, Ebay ID shelleyann1976

One end of Babyland Nursery Photo courtesy of Shelley, Ebay ID shelleyann1976

Accessories

The set's 26-piece group of hard plastic accessories came in white hard plastic.  The 26 pieces included four baby cribs and a sprue of six baby bottles.  The photo below shows eight of them, thanks to Shelley, Ebay ID shelleyann1976.  The pink baby bed at the bottom left is not from the set.

Various Babyland Playset accessories Photo courtesy of Shelley, Ebay ID shelleyann1976 (Pink bed is not from the Babyland set.)

Items that I can identify in the photo above are (left to right), 2-piece high chair (legs broken off), oxygen cannister, baby bath tub, desk (desk lamp appears to be broken off), crib (three of them), cupboard (sterilizer cover missing), sink, and incubator (cover missing).

A few others are shown in the photos below.  The photos are scaled approximately the same.  The sink is about 1-3/8 inches tall and 1-1/4 inches wide; the oxygen cannister seems a bit tall at almost 2-1/4 inches.

1.  Crib	2.  Incubator Without cover	3.  Incubator cover

4.  Sink	5.  Tray/Table

6.  Cupboard with sterilizer	7.  Sterilizer cover

8.  Desk Desk is about 1-7/8 inches wide.	9.  Chair for desk

10.  High chair Separate tray piece missing	11.  Scale and basket 2-piece item

12.  Milk bottle tray	13.  Diaper hamper

14.  Bath tub	15.  High chair with attached table

16.  Room divider	17.  Oxygen bottle

18.  Baby bottles

According to PFPC, the Babyland set also included a few accessories made of cloth and paper.  These included four felt cloth blankets (two in blue and two pink), a paper hat for the nurse, five cotton balls, a roll of gauze, and ten tiny baby name cards that could be attached to the four cribs in the set.  I am sure that finding these items is an impossibility, except for an unopened playset or a playset that has been rarely played with and meticulously maintained!

By the way, for you Marx trivia buffs, what are the names on the ten name cards that Marx provided for the four Babyland cribs?  (They are shown on the Marx assembly instructions!)

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