An interlude while I do some 1:1 scale painting

This past week I've been up a ladder with a paint brush redecorating the hall and this has necessitated taking down the display of toy soldiers I have there.  The figures need to be individually removed and dusted so I took these photos to remind me where they go when I put the display back up, as I'd taken the pics I thought I might as well share them with you dear reader.

Discreetly camouflaged by several years of dust, the figures here are not any particular favourites just odds and ends that I've taken a shine to and picked up over time. Occasionally things get moved around but the order of display is largely governed by the size of each compartment.

I've always been very open about collecting toy soldiers and when I mention my interest to anyone they immediately assume that I mean lead guardsmen standing to attention in red tunics (and in fairness there are a few of those), so this little display is my way of showing the diversity of the subject.  Click on a picture to enlarge, there are no prizes for identifying what they are but it might give you a minute or two of fun, now where did I put that duster?

The Toy Soldier Artistry of Holger Eriksson

Lou Sandbote is a well known name among toy soldier collectors, he has been editor of the Holger Eriksson Collectors Society newsletter since the early 1990's and his enduring passion for the subject has been a great inspiration to all of us.  Since those early days there has always been talk of a book but it seemed as though it would never materialise, part of the problem being that it is a monumental story following the movements of several major characters across three Continents, new information was constantly coming to light and indeed it continues to do so.  The book is now published and here it is:

With just over 300 pages it contains pictures of 6,607 toy soldiers (I didn't count them but Norman Joplin says so in his Introduction to the book).  Chapters include a look at the individuals who made the figures, an Identification Guide, 54mm Comet-Authenticast and SAE, Malleable Mouldings, Eriksson's own connoisseur range, 30mm SAE and AHI figures.

A taster of the page layout and format of the book, every page is illustrated in full colour, it really is an inspiring piece of work.

This is a self published work so (at present) you can only order it direct from Lou Sandbote, 3521 Potomac Avenue, Highland Park, Texas, 75205 USA.  ISBN no. 978-0-692-08536-3.  I have Lou's email address but I'm not going to put it out on the internet, if you would like it please leave me a message.  Lou tells me that so far 200 copies have been printed and more than half have already been sold, so if you want a copy don't hang around, my copy cost $95 plus $69 p&p to the UK.

Malleable Mouldings figures designed by Holger Eriksson

Holger Eriksson's Swedish Dragoon trumpeters herald in the New Year!

The five horsemen with the standing poses shown front and profile.  There is another rider in the set, an officer, which is the same figure as the Dragoon shown here but with the right arm cut away and replaced with one carrying a sword.

Among the earliest 54mm plastic figures made in the UK (or anywhere else for that matter) are these Swedish Dragoons made by Malleable Mouldings circa 1946.  The majority of this firms figures were based on designs made by Eriksson and others for Authenticast in Eire but so far as I can ascertain these Dragoons were only ever part of Eriksson's own "Tennfigurer" range of connoisseur models.  The crisp sculpting of the original metal models has not  transferred well to these plastic versions which are crude with excessive flash around the split lines. This suggests they may have been made by compressing material into the mould in the manner of earlier composition figures rather than injecting thermoplastic into them as practised in the 1950's.

A closer look at the rearing horses showing the three different positions of the forelegs (there is a fourth combination: right leg tucked in, left leg out).  The horse on the right clearly shows the split line where the two halves have been glued together and the less common oval base.

The horses are hollow, being formed in two halves and then glued together, the rearing ones are all the same basic pose with the moulds being modified to alter the position of the forelegs, allowing them to offer four different versions.  The bases on these horses are all original, the square/oblong ones are just cut from plastic sheet while the oval one (which is much less stable) has been formed from the same plastic as the horse and glued on.  The horses all have a small pinhole in the saddle which I always assumed was to take a peg from the rider for stability but these are the very first examples I've found which still have the pegs on the riders intact.

Are they rare?  Well that's a very subjective term, too often misused to infer value, certainly they are hard to find but on the other hand they turn up often enough.  These chaps are in this post simply because I found them all together in a junk box at a local collectors fair recently.  For more information on Malleable Mouldings and the other plastic figure ranges made from designs by Holger Eriksson (SAE and Spencer-Smith) see the Plastic Warrior Malleable Mouldings Special Issue

If anyone should read this, I hope you had a peaceful Happy Christmas and I offer you my very best wishes for the New Year, whoever you are.

Authenticast 40mm semi flats - mystery solved!

Back in March I posted an entry about a couple of 40mm semi flat sets made by Authenticast and questioned whether they were sculpted by Holger Erikssson because they were similar to his style but didn't carry the distinctive HE monogram.   Here is a picture of one set to remind people:

I subsequently received a comment and a more detailed email from Hans Jacobson in Sweden telling me that "They are slightly modified figures from about 1910 first manufactured in Stockholm by "Gamla Santonska Tenngjureiet" (The Old Santesson Tin Foundry) originally moulded in slate moulds.  Later the slate moulds were bought by the owner of Autenticast Kurt Wennerberg.  Autenticast modified some of the figures and kept some of them as they were.  He made then new rubber moulds of them that could keep up to commercial use. I think." 

Hans also told me the original figures were made for the Morocco crises 1910-11 and very kindly sent the following picture of the other figures in the set.

I think the mounted figures are stunning particularly the rider firing from under the horse.

The name of Holger Eriksson has become so synonymous with the firm of Authenticast that it is easy to forget that he was just one of the sculptors, the main one certainly, employed by Curt Wennberg who set up the venture in The Irish Republic on behalf of Comet Metal Products of the USA in 1946.  Before that in 1937, Wennberg had set up a company called Treforest Mouldings (in Wales) who are best known for their 1:1200 scale waterline model ships (under the brand name Tremo) but are also on record as making 40mm toy soldiers.  While the ships turn up regularly (at horrendous prices) the soldiers have never been seen, so I am wondering if Wennberg originally made copies of the Santesson figures at Treforest before issuing them on a more commercial basis at Authenticast?

 

Hans also discovered the origin of the standard bearer, it is a Turkish Janissary from another set by Santesson depicting the 1713 Skirmish at Bender, an action from the Great Northern War which I had never heard of but which would make a great wargame scenario.  Finally Hans sent me a link to the Swedish Toy Soldier Club website which shows early Swedish 40mm semi flats as well as some 54mm figures by Holger Eriksson and another of the Authenticast sculptors, Lennart Norrke.  Here is the link http://carolinen.se/home.htm the site takes a bit of navigating but it is well worth it, from the menu list on the left hand side click on "Galleri" then on "Aldre tennfigurer" for the 40mm and "Rundmassiva figurer" for the HE/LN figures.  If you have an interest in old waterline model ships, 40mm semi flats or want some inspiration for Funny Little Wars armies you'll find plenty to interest you here.

More Authenticast semi-flats - Holger Eriksson?

This is the second set of Authenticast semi-flats that I've unearthed, the standard bearer looks like an Eriksson design to me but I'm not so sure about the two arabs.  There is no indication what these are supposed to be on the box so I am assuming them to be arabs but exactly where from and what period I couldn't say for certain.  The standard bearer has a very Ottoman look to him and I think he may have lost a bit off the top of the standard.

I'm not sure if it will show in the photo but the green standard above has a Union Jack engraved on it so i'm guessing tht this figure also did service as a sepoy at some other time in some other set.

The mounted figures are in scale with the foot but I think  the horses might be a tad small.  Eriksson is probably best known for fine sculpting of his horses and to me these don't cut the mustard on that score so either they were done by someone else or they are very early examples before he refined his skill.

Authenticast 40mm semi-flats - but are they by Holger Eriksson?

Back in about 1966, so when I was 10, my dad decided to build a new wall for the front garden of our house in Chiswick, West London.  In digging up the area to lay the footings he unearthed a Royal Horse Artillery cap badge, 2 live rounds of .303 ammunition and a white plastic toy soldier of a highlander standing at ease.  How this cache came to be there is anybodies guess.  Now if I'd found a couple of live rounds I would immediately hand them over to the police but for reasons best known to himself  my dad decided to store them in the cupboard under the stairs next to the gas meter! but the important thing is that I got the cap badge and the highlander. 

By that time I was already an avid collector of plastic toy soldiers and was well versed in the products of all the major UK manufacturers but I'd never seen anything like that highlander, he'd lost his base and rifle, he wore a quirky uniform almost Crimean but certainly pre WW1 and was very well detailed.  I always felt there was something special about him but it would be another ten years before I was able to confirm that he was made by Malleable Mouldings from a design by the sculptor Holger Eriksson for Authenticast, a firm in Galway, Eire (where my dad was from).  That was the start of an ongoing love affair I have had for the works of Eriksson, a most prodigious sculptor for Comet, Authenticast, Malleable Mouldings, SAE (Swedish Afrikan Engineers), Spencer Smith, Prince August and his own Connoisseur range.

In the never ending tidy up of my toy soldier room I unearthed this old box of Authenticast 40mm semi flat figures of British infantry from the 7 Years War.  On the base they are marked Eire and a number has been scratched on each one but there is not the distinctive HE found on the majority of Authenticast's 54mm figures, denoting that they were designed by Eriksson.  Of course HE wasn't the only sculptor for Authenticast and it may be that they simply didn't mark the smaller sized figures so perhaps we can only go by the general style, which I would say is very HE particularly the man advancing at the ready which has that "purposeful stride" so typical of Eriksson. 

Despite the fact that they were in production for a relatively short time Authenticast 54mm figures are fairly common but these smaler semi flats are much less so, I have one other set (which I'll post up in a day or so) and I recall seeing a box of Napoleonics at a Phillips Auction about 15 years ago and that's about it.  The other box that I have is identical except that it carries the original price: 2/11 (two shillings and eleven pence. which for those not conversant with British pre-decimal currency would now be fourteen and a half new pence)

The standard bearer has his head turned to look back at the rest of the troops, a small detail that adds to the charm of the set.  Were they the forerunners of the Prince August range?  It's possible I suppose, these are much thinner than the PA figures.