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.

Beautiful Big Battleships

 I recently unearthed these photos I took a few years back of a rather fine model battleship, it was in the window of a high end antiques gallery just outside Hastings in East Sussex, the place was shut and I wouldn't be able to get back there later so I had to take the pics as best I could through the glass.  The model was about eight feet long (from memory) and I thought it was amazing, but I know nothing else about it.  Does anyone recognise the ship? the four smoke stacks might give a clue, could it have been a shipbuilders model or a film prop?  I have no idea but I thought, if I like it, then maybe someone else will too, and I think it's too good an image to leave forgotten on an old memory card.  Double click the pics to see the detail, it's taken a lot of punishment over the years but not beyond restoration I think.

In this pic you can just see the stern of another battleship.

Just to add to the confusion, I think this may be a photo of the second battleship mentioned above.

Yes, definitely a second ship, again with four smoke stacks but I think this one was a bit shorter.

When I look at the damage strewn across the decks of  these old models it makes me ponder on the carnage left in the aftermath of a sea battle between such steel leviathans.

HMS Neptune saved form oblivion

Another model ship, another cutting, this one has almost faded and sunk into to mists of time, but has been salvaged by the heroic efforts of digital technology.

The caption tells us this is HMS Neptune, which was a Collosus class Dreadnaught, launched in 1909, and saw action in the Battle of Jutland.  There is no indication of scale, you could assume the sailors were standard 54mm but I don't recognise the pose so they might have been homecast just for this model, in which case they could be any size, still it's a nice chunky little model and I wouldn't mind having it in my fleet.  The model is signed "Charles Ashley, 1916", the year of Jutland, it's reasonable to suppose he made it, maybe he even served on Neptune during the Battle, who knows?

What happened to these ships?

The Royal Navy can float a Battleship anywhere...….and they have some very nice toys!

I really want one of these!

Here the Royal Navy are launching model Battleships into the fountains that surround Nelson's Column in London's Trafalgar Square (see the lions in the background), so I'm guessing that it might be a fundraising or morale building event for Trafalgar Day.  From the cut of the uniforms, the bulk of the ships and the omnibus in the background it possibly dates from about 1910-20 but it could be earlier, what do you think?

I'm not sure where I found this picture, probably the Illustrated London News or something like that, as I've been collecting hoarding articles and cuttings of anything relating to toy soldiers and wargaming for the past 50 years.  Now I'm not the tidiest or most organised of people, so to say that this hoard is a bit of a mess would be something of an understatement, but in these times of self exile I need something else to do beyond painting toy soldiers and so a big sort out is called for.  This clipping is already fading into oblivion and so I felt it behove me to sharpen it up and preserve it in ether before it's gone forever.

It may just be me, but it feels like there's been a marked slowdown in postings on the blogosphere lately, almost certainly due to the unprecedented upheaval hitting all our lives. Shows and group gatherings are being cancelled right left and centre so there is much less news to be reported, and people's routines have been turned upside down.  I feel I should be doing my bit by posting more, but apart from being disorganised I am also fundamentally lazy so you can expect to see more cheap posts like this in the future!

H G Wells would have approved

My second and final report from the March 2013 London Toy Soldier Show are a couple of items built and being sold by an enthusiast for playing "Little Wars" (sadly I didn't make of note of who he was!)

The Nile gunboat "Bordien", I like the way the Britains AA gun has been mounted for'ard and the crows nest/conning tower thing on top of the aft mast, not so sure about the side paddle though.  Still a very nice model and one which has given me plenty of thoughts and inspiration for making my own waterline version.

On the same stall a heavy howitzer, simply made from the barrel and trail of the Britains 4.5" Howitzer with wheels from the 4.7" Naval gun which gives it the appearance of being something much heavier, it reminds me of those big WW1 Austrian Skoda guns.  It just goes to show what you can do with a few bits of broken old guns bought in a job lot on ebay.

And finally..........mention of H G Wells leads me neatly onto the Little Wars Centenary Games to be played out over the weekend of 27th/28th April at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.  Sadly this event is not open to spectators or the public as Sandhurst is a high security military base but several of the participants are regular bloggers so hopefully we will see plenty of reports with photos after the event.  I shall be leading out my redoubtable Ottoman army and the games will be played outdoors so I am keeping my fingers crossed for good weather!

Battleships belching Smoke and Flame by Heyde?

This rather nice little set of Battleships has left me with something of a quandary. 

I think they are meant to be Pre-dreadnoughts (though I am no expert in ship design) and show two ships of the Imperial German Navy battling it out with a sole Frenchy off the coast of Denmark, as denoted by the lighthouse sporting the Danish flag.  But what does this group represent?  I don't think it could be a Franco Prussian War encounter because the ships look much later and anyway the Imperial Navy wasn't founded until 1871, also I can't find any mention of an action between German and French Naval forces in the North Sea in WW1. 

Who made them?  Well Haffner and Spenkuch seem to have been the the main providers of semi flat battleships but I've looked through several books on early German leads and the examples I've found by these companies don't look anything like the above.   The nearest thing I could find in terms of sculpting and paint style is by Heyde, which is curious because this firm mostly made it's vehicles, vessels and accessories 3D in tinplate.

A great set, I particularly like the ram on the French ship but the secondary armament firing from a cupola half way up the mask seems a bit incongruous to me, is this correct? 

Seen at the London Toy Soldier Show March 2012

Yesterday I went to the London Toy Soldier Show, it didn't seem as busy as in previous years but then the first show of the year is often like that, many of the dealers were commenting that sales had been weak in recent months both at shows and mail order, and I guess this reflects the depressed state of the world economy (toy soldiers being a very international trade).  The show itself has had something of a chequered history, it started out as the Norman Joplin show then was taken over by Vectis Auctions who passed it on to King & Country and now it is being organised by Guideline Publications who publish Toy Soldier Collector magazine.

Above: three views of the Britains Nile Gunboat from the Sudan Campaign, a nice model but I have to admit I would prefer if it looked a bit more homemade and toy like than a professionaly made product but then of course it wouldn't have fitted with the rest of their range.

In recent years I seem to be buying less and less figures at shows but they are always good to go to because you never know what is going to turn up and it's always good to meet old friends and put faces to new people that you've come into contact with, among them this time around were Hugh Walter of the Small Scale World blog and Tim Gow of the Megablitz and More blog.

Above: two more views of Nile Steamers from the Sudan Campaign, this time from the British Toy Soldier Co. I think they work quite well.

Dorset Toy Soldiers Battleship

My final posting from the London Toy Soldier Show last weekend is this rather fine battleship from Dorset Toy Soldiers just what you need to refight the Battle of Jutland on your garden lawn. My old friend Giles Brown who owns Dorset Toy Soldiers tells me that he is about to open a shop down in the west country to sell his figures, so if yu happen to be in those parts it would be well worth giving him a call to check on opening times.

A few more sailors

At top a pair of matelots scrub the decks in time honoured fashion, the one with bucket is a later soft plastic copy of a hollowcast figure by JSF (Jouets Standard Francaise) the chap with the broom is also French made by ACEDO, (Domage et Cie) who previously made aluminium figures under the name ALUDO.

Posing by the forward gun is an unknown French made naval officer with a landing party standing at the ready converted from Cherilea foreign legion with metal matelot heads from Dorset Toy Soldiers

Some sailors for the Tradgardmastare

Over on the Army Red/White and Others blog our friend AG has asked for ideas on building ships and crewing them for 54mm wargames. Many years ago I built a gunboat based on the SMS Iltis, I've put pictures of it on the Funnny Little Wars Yahoo Group site and the sailors I use to crew it are here. 

At the top are two conversions made from Airfix commandos, in the middle are WW2 Lone Star and at the bottom is a close up of the bridge with two copies of Starlux? which I think were made in Hong Kong and a conversion which I think is supposed to be of Churchill.

Seen at the London Toy Soldier Show in March

This arab dhow was on the stand of Dorset Toy Soldiers.

Seen at the London Toy Soldier Show, March 2011

A couple of weeks back I went to the London Toy Soldier show run by King and Country, I didn't pick up much for myself this time around but I got a few pics to give me ideas for future projects, one that has long been on the back burner is a Nile gunboat. One item I really liked was this Britains General Service wagon converted to the Austrian army, the brown tunics suggests to me that they are an artillery unit.