Showing posts with label London Toy Soldier show. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London Toy Soldier show. Show all posts

Wednesday 19 April 2023

Recent additions.

 A couple of hollowcast lead finds from last month's show in London, the bugler with articulated arm is marked Japan, the wounded man was made in England by Crescent.

Thursday 6 January 2022

HM of GB Tudor range

 The only painted metal I managed to pick up at the London Show last month were these two examples of artillerymen from the short lived HM of BG Tudor World range, the chipped paint might need a bit of a touch up!


The gun is borrowed from somewhere else (Sikh artillery) but looks okay with these Tudor chaps, they will join the Monarch, Barzo and Chintoys Conquistadors to beef up the Wars of Religion project which is very slowly taking shape here.  Rather neat little figures I think and an unusual subject.


This is the full set of Tudor figures from the HM of GB catalogue, the mounted figure of Henry VIII is really quite fine and I wouldn't mind getting a few more of these.  The firm mostly made British Colonial figures back around 1990 and quite nice they were too, particularly a mule gun battery, they exhibited for several years at the Olympia Toy Trade Fair in London but despite this they never really took off with collectors.  

Sunday 2 January 2022

USS San Pueblo at the London Toy Soldier Show

 Back in December I went along to the London Toy Soldier Show, I have to admit I was checking each day that it wouldn't be cancelled at the last minute, but they stuck to their guns and with due social distancing it went ahead.  

One of the highlights for me was this rather nice model of the USS San Pueblo, I didn't catch the name of the maker but no doubt it will come to light at some point, in the meantime I thought I'd share it anyway.  (sure enough, within an hour Antony Spencer has advised me that it's made by The British Toy Soldier Company)

Those sailors to look pretty smart.

I quite liked the backdrop of 2D Chinese shopfronts too.

I thought the mood in the show was rather sombre, but that's only to be expected in the circumstances.  Still, it didn't stop me adding to the pile of unpainted figures and it was great to get together again with like minded friends for the usual after show drink.

Monday 8 June 2020

A few pics from a past London Toy Soldier Show

A trawl through old stuff brought these photos of from the December 2018 London Toy Soldier Show to light.  To be honest I felt they were a bit too fuzzy and not interesting enough to post at the time but with the dearth of shows at present I thought I'd give them an airing.

Above and below are scenes from a King & Country VietNam diorama.


If WW2 in the Pacific floats your boat here are a few more diorama shots from King & Country


At the time of writing, the London Toy Soldier Show on 27th June has just been cancelled, so we keep our fingers crossed for the next one on 5th December.  The Herne Show run by Peter Bergner is scheduled for 5th July, Germany seems to be opening up slightly ahead of the rest of Europe.  The old Birmingham show, known as the Midlands Toy Soldier Show is moving to a new location in Stoke on Trent on 27th September.  Our local car boot fair is due to reopen next Sunday, so if nothing else I can look forward to a long early morning walk around a field in the countryside with a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea at the end of it.

Monday 23 December 2019

King & Country at the toy soldier show

The team from King & Country were over for the recent London show and this rather magnificent new Vietnam diorama was the centrepiece of their stand.  The post WW2 era has never really appealed to me but I know a lot of people collect this stuff and the standard of terrain modelling on K&C dioramas is always inspiring.



I think K&C only attend the December show these days, trawling back through old photos I noticed that I never got around to posting the pics I took of their display last year, I'll remedy that over the next few days.  In the meantime let me wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas.

Saturday 14 December 2019

Wargame at the London Toy Soldier Show

The internet blurb for the December show in London said it would feature a wargame arranged by James Opie and Replica Metal Soldiers & Models so I thought I'd take a look (well I was going there anyway for a Christmas get together with the lads)

The table was laid out for the Battle of Tell el Kebir, a good choice for a display game as it needs very little terrain (important if you're the one transporting the stuff) and the two sides are easily identifiable, Egyptians are in white, Brits are not.  I don't know the purpose of the bits of paper dotted all over the place but this sort of clutter on the table is a pet hate of mine.

Nice to see that I'm not the only person who resorts to mounting toy soldiers on 2p pieces!  Cavalry are mounted on lengths of transparent Perspex which are all but invisible, I was very impressed with the table mat which appeared to be just hand painted cloth but executed so much better than my own efforts.

I was told that the rules being used had been written by James Opie, based on Wells' Little Wars but with some modern twists (no matchstick firing cannon!).  It's nice to see a display wargame returning to the London Show but I do still miss the old Skirmish Wargames Group games.

James Opie was on hand at the nearby stand for C&T Auctions and was joined by Luigi Toiati who was promoting his new book "The History of Toy Soldiers".  Regulars at the London Show in the late 1980's and early 90's will remember the affable Luigi as the man behind Garibaldi Toy Soldiers, I've had his book for a while now but haven't had time to read through it (pictures look nice though) so a review will have to wait a bit longer.

In the meantime James and Luigi were promoting another new book "La dinastia degli Antonini a Roma" which is a privately printed history of three generations of  the Antonini family who have been making toy soldiers in Rome, their FIGIR composition figures are well known but not their lead creations so I've written to Santa for a copy, but as my emails to Rome haven't been acknowledged I'm not confident it will get here by Christmas!

Sunday 7 April 2019

Seen at the London Toy Soldier Show March 2019

The show in London last weekend seemed a little flat to me, but it was nice to meet old friends and I spent most of my money so that's what counts, here are a few of the things that took my fancy:

This little collection appealed to me, I really liked the tractor, it makes a change form horse drawn limbers and I'm sure it would be easy enough to bodge one out of some bits and pieces of tin and wood.

I have a descent sized Roman collection and I'm slowly building up the Gauls/Barbarians to go with them but the project has lost momentum so I took this pic to provide me with some inspiration, I think the figures are by King & Country.

I've just finished painting up 50 Vikings, Normans and Saxons but have another 100 or so to go, mine don't look as good as this so the pic gives me something to aim for.

These superb Conquistadors are from a range made by Morgan Miniatures, my current project is a TudorBethan mish mash of 16th Century types so I took this pic to give me some reference points.

I'm not mad about tanks and vehicles but I do quite like some of the quirky stuff produced in that period of development between the wars

My stash from the show was mostly modern production, here the two sets of Conquistadors from Chintoys, I currently have two sets on the paint table and these additions will be used for conversions.  In the middle a lone pikeman from Replicants, found in a junk box, and at the back a mounted Russian made Teutonic knight alongside William of Normandy by Del Prado, the latter is a bit large but I find their personality figures ideal for command groups and at the moment they are as cheap as chips for the quality.  

My only vintage purchases of the day, some Italian composition, I think made by Salpa but I need to check, they represent modern infantry which isn't really my thing but they were very cheap and I just liked the poses.

Rounding off, some Conte Normans on the right, to the left more of the unnamed Russian made Teutonic knights along with Seljuk Turks from the same manufacturer.  The knights vary in size from about 60mm (which is just about okay) up to 70mm, very nice sculpts but just too big for me so I will be passing some of them on at the forthcoming Plastic Warrior show on 11th May.

Thursday 14 March 2019

Memoir 44 - Battle of Carpiquet in 54mm part 2

As part of Operation Windsor of 4th July 1944 the 8th Canadian Infantry Brigade advanced from the Normandy bridgehead to capture the airfield outside the village of Carpiquet and this is the scenario that Anthony and I chose to play using 54mm toy soldiers and the Memoir 44 game system devised by Richard Borg.

The Canadian armour advances, this game system is very much about the tanks, they have great mobility and firepower but their full potential can only be exercised in open country, their effectiveness is much diminished against troops in cover.

On the German left wing, infantry of both sides move cautiously forward, probing and making maximum use of terrain for cover.

The two panzer units on the German right wing have elite status, which gives them a marginal edge in tank on tank combat, they launched an all out attack and made short work of the opposing Shermans

Infantry have great resilience when in cover, several times the defenders were forced out of their positions but quickly regrouped and returned to the fray.

The Allied armour eventually broke out of the bocage but by then the panzers had command of the open ground and there was nothing for it but to fall back.

The game was fast paced and the outcome played out very similar to the original action in 1944, from that point of view we judged it to have worked well.  Visually it was nice to see the Britains Deetail figures on the table and six figure units looked about right but I think we need to work on the representation of built up areas (which I feel is an issue with grid based games) and perhaps some explosive blast markers.  It lasted about an hour and a half.

Elsewhere, the latest issue of Plastic Warrior magazine arrived in the post this morning (see PW link in column on the left), the Woking Games Day is being held this Saturday (for details see the Little Wars Revisited link in the column on the left) and we also have the London Toy Soldier Show coming up on the 30th March, so a busy few weeks ahead.

Friday 16 November 2018

London Toy Soldier Show

It seems I took these pictures at the London Toy Soldier Show in December 2017 and started a post but never published it, so here it is, nearly a year late but at least it serves as a reminder that the next show will be on Saturday 1st December 2018 more details HERE.  I can't remember who any of the makers of these figures are, but they are all regulars at the show, so I'll just let the pictures do the talking.





If you know who made any of these figures do let me know and I'll give them the plug they deserve.  I use pictures like this to to give me inspiration when it comes to making conversions and also for ideas on painting schemes so I hope it will be of some help to others too.


Monday 21 May 2018

Plastic Warrior Show 2018

The Plastic Warrior Show has come and gone for another year, a part of me is always glad to get it over with, another part can't wait until the next one, we collectors are indeed a curious race.  Some new Replicants mounted Comanche Indians were unveiled at the show, I haven't included pictures of them as they are already poping up all over the blogosphere and on their revamped website which is well worth a look here: Replicants.

Dan Morgan made this rather nice medieval diorama to showcase Replicants civilian figures.

Adrian Little treated us to an extensive collection of Malleable Mouldings figures, of which this is just a small selection

There were a couple of these Polish Renaissance gun teams on Steve Vickers table, they are quite large size, the figures stand about 70mm high

One of the French dealers brought this interesting landing craft over with him.

The Melton Brothers from York had an interesting selection of early English plastics

more of the above!

This was the offering from Belgian collector Daniel Lepers

.....and more of the above.

That's it until next year folks!


Sunday 6 May 2018

A few of last year's finds

Rather late in the day but I just came across more pics of some figures I got at last year's Plastic Warrior Show.  I didn't take a table last year because I felt in need of a big spend up on toy soldiers and you just can't do that with the same reckless abandon when you've got to look after a stall. I bought heaps of stuff, stocking up on fodder for conversions which I won't bore anyone with, so here are just a couple of the less usual bits:

This is the original plaster form for the mould of a Charbens red Indian which never went into production.  It's very difficult to visualise the finished product from looking at the inverse impression in the mould so the chap who sold it to me had made a metal casting to see what the figure would have looked like,

These plasters came from the estate of John Riccardini who had worked as a freelance designer for several UK toy manufacturers, principally Charbens, these are red Indian legs from the Timpo swoppet range. These plaster forms were first cast around the master figure and would then be sent to the foundry where they would then be copied in brass, fine detail would be engraved into the brass to finish the mould and the plaster could be discarded. I have several original brass moulds but these are the only plasters I have ever had. I only met Mr Riccardini once and he was a very nice chap, he engraved his name into one of these moulds, I suppose to assert his intellectual rights, which is a nice touch, I wish I'd made more effort to stay in touch with him. Too late, another missed opportunity to learn from the people who made the toys.

A mounted Roman officer made in France by JSF (Jouets Standart Francais), originally made in hollowcast lead, this plastic version has a high plaster content and is starting to deteriorate but happily is still all in one piece. 

Another figure from JSF from a series of French army off duty, it's a very large set with many unusual poses but quite hard to find and very sought after when they do turn up.

Well that's it until after the PW show next week, I thought it was time I did a post about proper toy soldier collecting as this blog has become rather 54mm wargaming heavy of late, but as that has always been the prime focus for my collecting activity it will probably continue to be the direction that this blog takes.

Good hunting!


Sunday 29 January 2017

Plastic Warrior Show 13th May 2017

The date for this year's Plastic Warrior Show has now been announced, it's Saturday 13th May 2107 at the same venue in West London, The Winning Post, that has been used for the past five years.  Here are the directions from an earlier post on the Plastic Warrior blog: Plastic Warrior Show directions

So make a note on your calendar and as you start to mark the days off, here are the last few pics I took at that other show in London

I'm going through a bit of a French & Indian Wars phase at the moment and having a very low attention span when it comes to uniform research I thought I'd use these superb Britains pieces to provide me with a colour guide when I eventually pick up the paintbrush.

I always find myself in deep water when it comes to non-uniform colour schemes like on these woodland Indians, but I have no shame when it comes to paying someone else the compliment of copying their ideas, so I expect that something very similar to these two fine chaps by Britains will soon be skulking on my wargame table.

......Oh and Vikings.  That's the other phase I'm going through at the moment, more fine figures from Britains.

I think this rather sombre diorama was on the King & Country stand but somehow it managed to absent itself from the previous post!

The colourful displays on the ATS (Alexanders Toy soldiers) stand are always a joy to behold, here our fine fellows fend off those pesky Bavarians.

More glorious colour from ATS, and here the French try their luck with the British Grenadiers.

Beautifully sculpted horses from ATS in this diorama of Parliamentary Horse charging during the English Civil War.

An finally, the other end of the ATS diorama shows the Royalist Horse in all their finery.

I am remiss in not mentioning earlier about the new forum/discussion board for those interested in wargaming with 54mm figures, it already has 75 members so take a look here: