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Has anyone heard about Märklin before? It is actually a producer for model railways, but I have seen some animal figurines done by them as well. The company was founded in 1859, which is quite vintage to me, but they are still producing models so I am not sure if Vintage Companies was the right category to put them. Just a little basic information about Märklin:

Wikipedia wrote:

Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH or Märklin (MÄRKLIN or MAERKLIN in capital letters) is a German toy company. The company was founded in 1859 and is based at Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Although it originally specialised in doll house accessories, today it is best known for model railways and technical toys. In some parts of Germany and in Sweden, the company's name is almost synonymous with model railroads.

I own two animal figurines by Märklin, which are part of a circus series. They are two tigers in pretty good condition which I found in a Dutch thrift store. These are older photographs, so they lack my dice for scale. They are about 3-4 cm tall. There is another circus set with white tigers (Märklin used the same tiger molds), check them out here.


When googling for 'Märklin circus tiger', you can find this set quite easily (photo credit to owner):


Look at those tiny tigers being epic on top of a train, accompanied by two elephants! These seem to be the two elephants from the #29410 beginner starter set (photo credit to owner):


Nice! But when I start googling for 'Märklin circus elephant', this set comes up (photo credit to owner):


The adult elephant seems to be the same from the #29410 beginner starter set, but it has two adorable baby elephants with it (two different molds!).
When I google a bit further, I can find a lion and bear as well (photo credit to owners):


They look pretty neat, fur such small figurines, I think! But I am not done yet! I found these sets, and found this pretty interesting.. I found two other sets, they look like they are from a different series. But they are still circus themed. There are two sets, both including a train compartment, one with a family of elephants and one with a family of lions. But look closely at the included animal figurines (photo credit to owners):


I recognized the animal figurine style as soon as I saw the elephants; they are VEB Plaho!!! Look at @widukind's VEB Plaho photos at TAi:


Yes, definitely VEB Plaho! I am not sure in which years the above sets were released, but the ones with the VEB Plaho figurines seem older. I find it interesting that Märklin used animal figurines by a different brand at first, but later on started to produce its own!

I will leave this for now, but I am sure there is more to be found by Märklin. For instance, any farm/horse sets Thanks for reading, please share your thoughts! And do not mind to share your own pictures, I would love to see more Märklin animal figurines!