Rare Sacul knights at the Plastic Warrior Show 2025

 It has been three months now since the Plastic Warrior Show and we are still unearthing the goodies that emerged, here are some more:

These three Sacul mounted knights in plastic were on the table of Joe Bellis at the Plastic Warrior Show last June, notice the one on the right has a shield which is copied from the Britains Wars of the Roses Swoppet range. The Sacul knights were originally made in hollowcast lead and are fairly common in the UK but not so much overseas, later they were made in plastic from the original moulds for a very short time and the plastic versions (above) are very rare. There is just one horse and one rider model but the rider was issued with four different articulated right arms holding an axe, a sword, a standard or a lance.

Curiously the horses turn up more often than the riders and the moveable parts; visor, right arm, shield and scabbard are always moulded in these garish bright colours. The shields are invariably missing, I have one with the original heater shaped shield but I've never seen one with this copy of the Britains WOTR shield in lead or plastic. The Sacul foot knights are extremely rare in plastic, I have only ever seen one example.

My friend Norman Joplin told me "I believe one of the Barrett brothers (Bert) may have been responsible for these along with plastic items marketed as Luntoy and Paramount when I visited his home in Croydon some years ago."  Norman is referring here to the family who originally founded Taylor & Barrett in the 1920's, then later split to form F G Taylor & Sons and A Barrett & Sons after WW2.  The Barrett Brothers bought up moulds from various defunct manufacturers such as Benbros, Paramount and Sacul, which were in due course sold on again to Giles Brown of Dorset Model Soldiers, but that's another story for another day.

The two plastic Sacul knights in my collection, the hollowcast lead versions had a feather plume in their helmet made from the darts used in air guns, the metal point of the dart being pressed into the lead pouring hole of the helmet to leave the brightly coloured tail sticking out.  The same method as used by Timpo in their "Ivanhoe" and "Knights of the Round Table" series, Sacul had been set up by an ex Timpo employee called Lucas (who reversed his name for the firm).  The lead pouring holes were capped off and new plumes engraved into the moulds when they were adapted for use on a plastic injection moulding machine.

The knight on the right has the correct Sacul shield (in plastic) which came with the original hollowcast figure, there is a spigot on the reverse which plugs into the bend in the left arm.  It's curious to note that the horses are made in various colours of plastic and always appear to be factory painted in the Sacul style while the riders are made in a base body colour plastic with multi colour accoutrements in the early swoppet style, this has led us to speculate that the horses might have been produced first in the Sacul factory then sold as a job lot along with the moulds and the riders moulded at a later date.

Also on Joe's table was a good selection of the 60mm Crescent Hurons/Mohicans (I'm never sure which they are supposed to be but I'm sure someone will enlighten us), these are also very hard to find so I thought I'd squeeze in this pic just because they are so nice!

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 Tennfigurer 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.