It is Bill Lemon Not Elio Simonetti on Marx Six Inch figures

It is Bill Lemon Not Elio Simonetti as you readers know Erwin and I have an on going battle with Hugh Walter of Small Scale World. I have let Hugh alone on his small mistakes he has done on his site. I felt his readers would give corrections or information for him. (The red elephant you got at PW is MPC. Dulcop did make the 20mm cowboys you showed it was Baravelli another Italian company.) I do have reply to his statement that Elio Simonetti designed the Marx cowboys and Indians.  This a major mistake and worse wide speculation when hard proof exists who did these figures Bill Lemmon.

It is Bill Lemon Not Elio Simonetti The Proof

The Marx six inch cowboys and Indians were done by Bill Lemon or Lemmon depending on where you look. (This is like it can be Elio or Emilo as Elio is a abbreviation for Emilo. I will use Elio as it is more common on the internet and is used by Fontanni.) Lemon was a major designer and scupltor for toy companies in the 60’s and 70’s. Beside doing the Marx six inch figures, Bill also worked for Mego, Aurora and Kenner. In this article John McNett Director of Design at Mego met Bill Lemon and was so impress with his work that he had him sculpted the Star Trek Line including the Klingon.

Bill did some of the figures for the Kenner Star Wars line. Here is what one person said on Bill. “Bill Lemon — the guy who sculpted in acetate — is the most well-known of the contractors. He was known to Kenner through his work on earlier toy lines, model kits in particular.”  You can see at this site ssome more comments on Bill and one of his prototypes here.

Bill also scuplted some of the Aurora monster models. So he had a well rounded career in the toy business.

It is Bill Lemon Not Emlio Simonetti Marx Connection

As we stated earlier Bill Lemon did work for Marx it was discussed in this comment from my site back in 2015.  Mark T noted about an article done in PFPC by Rusty Kern. The article listed the various sculptors who did work for Marx including Bill Lemon. Bill is known for the six inch figures.  We have a done a photo showing two of the Marx six inch figures.  As you can see the figures in the picture below they are  done by the same scupltor.

Now look at the 45mm African native and 45mm Indian  done by Fontanni.

When you compare the figures in the two different photos you can see two different styles.  Especially compare the Indians. I would say the Marx figure is more realistic.

It is Bill Lemon Not Elio Simonetti It Just Can Not Be

Hugh in his article on Fontanni he notes that different companies had western figures made by Fontanni and/ or by Simonetti.  He then makes the following statement  “The fact that the Cowboys and Indians of all the above named resemble the Marx sets is probably because Simonetti designed them too.” He follows it up with the theory Roman this is the company that has exclusive rights to sell Fontanni in the United States got Simonetti the job.

This is the biggest fairy tale of the month for our hobby. The Marx six inch figures were first issued in 1963 so they would have been on the drawing board in 1962. Roman Inc did not start business until 1963 when the line was already started. Marx would have use American designers so they would have gotten a quick turn around time. I can go on what is wrong with this statement. I feel I have covered this problem enough.

It is Bill Lemon Not Elio Simonetti Final Thoughts

We all make mistakes and if we can we should correct them.  When you go into speculation or assuming you are in dangerous territory.  Worse when you do not back it up with research.  Hugh’s comment shows he did little or no research.  When I  did this post, I checked  internet. Now I  did have prior knowledge of Bill Lemon’s work, but I still checked. Also I checked on Fontanni and Roman. Finally I looked at Marx six inch figures. The results of my research is here.

Hugh knocks Erwin’s copying of infromation. The  informaton that Erwin has shared here and elsewhere is material that collectors  are unaware of and  helps learn more on the hobby.  Hugh’s speculation like on Simonetti  doing Marx will on hurt his credibility. I should taken that bet he made on his site.