I don't, and I'm sure I would have done. It was a sticker album full of pictures of famous battles with blank spaces where you inserted the the numbered stickers to complete the image. It was published by Cox international of Antwerp and the text is in French, German, English, Italian and Dutch, there's nothing to indicate the date of publication but it does appear to have been distributed in the UK.
This is the cover of the album with examples of the stickers and the packets they came in, you got two stickers in each pack and you needed to collect 306 different ones to fill all the blanks. Before the advent of the Almark and Osprey uniform books I used to rely mostly on postcards, cigarette and bubble gum cards for uniform info, and I would have loved this.
There are 17 Battles depicted and the album opens with the Salamis then runs chronologically through to the Six Day War. I think the illustrations are amazing, just the sort of thing I rely on to give me a bit of inspiration when the toy soldier spirit is flagging.
Each Battle covers a double page spread and I've endeavoured to get as much of each one as I could into the photo. There are a few surprises among the conflicts included, this is Wahlstadt (1241) fought between the Teutonic Knights and the Mongols, I've never heard of it before.
One of my favourites is Lepanto, shown above, but my absolute favourite has to be Adowa in the two pics below.
I heard about the album from friends in Germany where it's available quite cheaply still on ebay, I got 200 packets of stickers with it but still need about another 100 to fill all the blanks so there are lots of doubles.
Peeling off the stickers and pasting them into the pages is a very therapeutic way to spend a few hours!
Those are cool. I don't recall seen those - and I grew up in the late-60's early-70's; but in Hawaii, so it likely didn't make it over. I did have a bunch of Airfix 1/72nd and a few Historex 54mm and lead figures too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for showing me your album in the flesh the other Saturday Brian. It really is inspirational!
ReplyDeleteBeing of a certain age I thought I had seen most military based ephemera, but this is one I know nothing about. Quality.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember these ones but I was a big fan of transfer scenes by Letraset etc when I was young. I also have a memory of a card box which you looked into longways which had pop up military figures recreating 3d scenes (Dunkirk or D-Day perhaps?)
ReplyDeleteGreat find Brian! This is one that I have not seen. The pictures are amazing and extremely detailed! Well done!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting , I've never heard of this before , a great find .
ReplyDeleteI had a book with stickers of uniforms through the ages as a kid, would probably have loved one with battles even more!
ReplyDeleteOh yes! I used to love these. I'd forgotten all about them.
ReplyDeleteI remember these too. Peeling them from the backing paper was a tricky job if I recall.
ReplyDeleteHi Mario, fortunately my friend in Germany has now tracked down all the missing stickers for me.
ReplyDeleteThis album was supposed to be published in 1975. When I was young, I took two of them in a convenience store and I bought a lot of packs with two stickers in each of them. During more than 40 years, the two album stay in my basement, as the smell of humidity that has permeated the albums now indicates! Recently, I bought many packs and stickers alone on eBay, and I completed one of the two albums. Two stickers still missing in the second one: the numbers 139 et 236. Is someone have these stickers? I have a lot of doubles, so maybe we can do a trade. If someone need stickers, like I wrote, I have many of them. Sorry for my mistakes, french is my first language. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHello Daniel, I have already sent all of my unused stickers to a friend in Germany but I understand you can buy individual stickers on ebay.de
DeleteHi Brian, ok, thank you for your answer, I found my two stickers missing. But you, on your side, do you reach some wich are missing? Thank you.
DeleteI have a lot of double, 3X, 4X, etc....
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