Medieval Lord and Lady - but who made them?

 After the success I had on facebook with the identification of the Galloglass made by Oojah-Cum-Pivvy I thought I'd try the same approach to find the origin of these rather fine figures. I believe they were made in England, 54mm tall, they are made from some sort of composition material, they may have been made for a toy theatre or something like that.

My thoughts that they might have been made for a toy theatre prompted suggestions that they may have been Shakespearean characters such as Petruchio and Kate from Taming of the Shrew, they certainly have the arrogant stance for that couple.  The period costumes have been well researched and carefully painted, I have seen examples of them before so I think they were produced commercially but not in large numbers.

Two more figures from the same series, a boy/Prince and a Monk, they are not the usual wood/glue composition or the plaster of Italian figures, perhaps more like the Blanc de Medun of some French types which is very hard, there is no armature. The base on the Prince is lead and not original but was added by a previous owner.

On the figure of the Boy it says "Courtier temp. Ric II Earl of March" on the man it says "Courtier temp. Edw IV" these were stickers added by the previous owner to notate who the figures represented in his personal collection, sadly he give no indication of their manufacturer, he uses the word temp. to abbreviate "time of". 

I acquired them in one of James Opie's auctions for Phillips back in the 80's the seller had been a student of heraldry and his entire medieval collection along with his research archive were up for sale. The lots were all high end connoisseur figures, Courtenay, Ping etc which sold for serious money but these were in a lot of plastics, most of which were conversions to represent personalities in their heraldry, luckily nobody else wanted them so I was the only bidder. Being conversions, all of the figures had these paper stickers on the base to show who they represented.

To date their manufacturer has not been identified so if you recognise them please leave a comment to let us all know.

Toy Soldiers of the Great War

An early birthday present to myself (because I'm worth it), "Les Petits Soldats de la Grande Guerre" has been out for while but I've only just come across it, the cover announces that it includes 800 toys of WW1 so I had to have it.

Published in 2013 by Editions Glenat, A4 format, it has 256 pages illustrated in full colour throughout, ISBN 978-2-7234-0700-2.  Written in French only but light on text so not too challenging for anyone with with a smattering of the language and a grounding in the Great War.  The pic below gives an example of the layout and quality of the illustrations.  The cover price is 39 Euro, which I would say offers very good value for a book of this size and quality, I got my copy on ebay France, new and still in the cellophane wrapping for 19 Euro plus 9 Euro P&P from seller "Book77".  Bargain!

There are 12 chapters looking at different aspects of the war, into which the toys are conveniently slotted.  The cover gives little away and I half expected the book to include every type of toy from diecast vehicles to dolls and teddy bears, but fear not, apart from a chapter containing tinplate tanks and ships the rest is all toy soldiers.  

You can expect to see the perennial favourites from Britains, CGB Mignot, and Elastolin  but they don't dominate, it's packed with figures of every genre: paper, flats and semi flats, conjoint tin, wood, hollowcast and solid lead, composition and even a little plastic and modern white metal (but not much).  The more I flick through it the more I enjoy it, I reckon you will too.

TAG Cossacks

I'm about to embark on a new project which involves painting up a load of Cossacks, happily there are lots of figures available thanks to the current Russian manufacturer Engineer Basevitch who has included several in his many excellent and unusual sets.  The problem is that I want them to be a generic unit that can be used from 1800 through to 1930, so what colour do I paint the tunics?  When in doubt I always look at what the toy manufacturers have done in the past, not always historically accurate, but good enough for me and with that in mind I dug out my old composition Cossacks made by TAG.

The figures I'll be painting are all wearing the distinctive cherkesska tunic with sown in cartridge pockets like these above.  The first two figures here are TAG and I assumed the third one was too when I bought it, but when I put them all together I see it's very different, obviously shorter with finer detail and made from white plaster, it's very TAG in style so it could be a later improved line of production but I'm just speculating here.

I've never been entirely sure what this thing hanging on their back is meant to be but I assume it's meant to be a traditional bashlik hood.  I'm not sure this exercise is helping with my uniform colour quandry!

While I had the Cossacks out I thought I might as well photograph the rest of my TAG figures,  These are curious creatures, made in England after WW2, but beyond that nobody seems to know much about them or who made them, the only clue being the large "dogtag" they wear tied around the neck which proclaims them to be "A TAG Educational Toy".  From left above are 2 Royal Armoured Corps, a paratrooper and an infantryman.  I've always been curious, on what basis TAG could claim these to be educational?

Mostly they're made from a green/grey composition material very similar to Milliput which put me in mind of the gunk people used back in the old days to repair the rusted patches and rotted wheel arches on their car.  Other materials such as plaster are also used.  I think the MP in white helmet is just an ordinary infantryman who has been embellished by a previous owner, I'm not the culprit on this occasion but I have to admit to ruining many a good toy soldier with dodgy painting in my schooldays.  The center figure is a British Military Police "Redcap" (factory painted) followed by two rather robust Guardsmen.

The reverse side of the "dogtag" gives unit information.  I wouldn't normally bother showing a back view but on this occasion I was quite taken with the detailing of the parachute harness and sten gun slung on the MP, it shows a modicum of research and modelling on what are otherwise very crude toys.  I've never consciously collected TAG figures, I don't really like them and I'm not even sure how I came to have these.  I guess you just acquire the odd figure here and there then before you know it a collection has quietly crept up on you.

Well that's all done for another year!

Yesterday was the thirtysomethingth Plastic Warrior Show in London, I forget which number we're up to, a sure sign of ageing), here are a few of the things I took a shine to:

A tongue in cheek diorama made by Dan Morgan shows the archaeological discovery of  ancient Replicants figures in the South Downs of England.  The archaeologists are all converted from Replicants wild west figures.

The Plastic Warrior Show has become the traditional showcase chosen by Replicants to launch their latest range, this year they have produced a set of Texas Rangers.  Not the sharpest photo, sorry about that.

It's not all plastic at PW (although it is mostly), here a nice selection of Elastolin and others composition, I thought the bears were awesome.

One of the nicest forts I've seen in a long while, this one hand built by the seller, if only I had the room for it..............

I love these early plastic aircraft, especially the twin engine bombers, I'm tempted to start collecting them but you have to draw the line somewhere........don't you?

Some serious hardware here, lovely old German tinplate from the 1930's, the AA truck and jeep in the centre are by Tippco, I didn't dare to turn over any of the price tags!

More from the same table, the panzer in foreground was made by GAMA, I don't recognise the large gun at the back but it looks to be like 1960's manufacture.

A typical table top at the show, an organised confusion of plastic figures, this table belonged to one of the German collectors.  Last year we had wondered what effect Brexit would would have on the attendance of dealers from Continental Europe, happily they all booked their tables way before Brexit was postponed, which bodes well for the future, it seems the lure of toy soldiers far outweighs a little inconvenience at customs.  The German guys were all staying overnight in Belgium so they could attend the Brussels Toy Soldier Show the next day......... and there was a spare seat for me if I wanted to go, was I tempted?  you bet I was.

A nice selection of rare and early English plastics, it continues to amaze me how much of this stuff there is out there.  We all acquire far more toys than we need or want and the PW show has always been primarily aimed at collectors who want to dispose of their surplus, this year the show was fully booked well in advance and there was a sizable waiting list in the event of any dropouts.  I find this very encouraging, it indicates an enthusiastic and resilient collectors community.

Will the real Mr Churchill please stand up?

I've had these three little chaps tucked away for a very long time, they came to me as "extras" in a collection of early composition I bought at auction many moons ago and they've lain undisturbed until the latest round of my never ending tidy-up.  

I've never seen their like before and don't know who made them, anyone out there got any ideas?  They stand about 60mm and are made of a plaster material, similar but not as dense as the figures made in France by Bon Dufour.  They look to be caricatures and have indents in their backs that suggests they may have had a pin to be worn as some sort of broach (although they seem rather large for that) or perhaps they were pieces for a toy theatre, who knows?

I took them along to a recent collectors show where one of the German dealers remarked that the first one looked like Kaiser Wilhelm II in pre Great War Landwehr uniform with tschako.  The middle one reminded me of the well known photo of Winston Churchill standing alone after he'd been captured by the Boers, but of course the uniform is all wrong for that.  The Poilu on the end had us foxed, any ideas anyone?

As an aside

 I have recently been suffering from "the tyranny of the blog", a change in circumstances caused me to stop posting for a short while and then I found it very difficult to get back into it, the longer this went on the harder I found it to put fingers to keyboard.  I'm sure all bloggers get this at some time, there has been lots to report in the interim, shows, new toy soldier books and magazines, acquisitions and figure conversions, new projects started (then abandoned) but sadly not much in the way of gaming.  So this post is a sort of gentle slip back into the blogosphere.  I think going forward there may be more pictures and less text here, that's more the sort of person I am.

Seen at the London Toy Soldier Show March 2013

Time seems to be running away from me just lately, a few weeks ago I went to the London Toy Soldier show, trading appeared very slow to me but among the highlights I saw this rather nice little collection of Belgian composition figures on the table of Mercator Trading.

In the centre a mounted King Leopold III of Belgium and his three children by Queen Astrid, Lto R: Prince Baudouin, Prince Albert and Princess Josephine-Charlotte.  They are flanked by Napoleonics: on the left by three French infantry and on the right what I take to be Belgian infantry of the United Provinces (I'm basing this on what I can see of the standard).  Made in Belgium by N.B. (Nazaire Beusaert), I estimate that they were made about 1939 when Josephine-Charlotte would have been aged 12, Baudouin 9 and Albert 5, there is no figure of Queen Astrid as she was killed in a car accident in 1935.  The mounted Leopold is quite common but I'd never seen the children before and they make a charming little group, it saddens me to reflect that within a year of these figures being made Belgium had been overrun and the family's life turned upside down by war.

On the same table was this collection of mid 1930's carved wood "erzgebirge" style SA men (I use the word  guardedly as it's in danger of becoming a generic term for any Germanic folksy type wood carved figure when it more comfortably refers to touristy Christmas tree decorations, which these are surely not).  I've not seen so large a collection as this before, it includes field tent, SA barracks and a staff HQ, the bandsmen in black caps are SS, going by the various sizes and styles of carving these have been pulled together from several makers.  Individually the figures have a simple naivety about them but en masse they evoke the era and regime that produced them, and I find that rather chilling.

WW1 machine gun team

This semi flat composition machinge gun team were made in Germany around 1910 by Mars Hindenburg. They are depicted from the waist up as though firing from behind an earthwork and wear the flat topped felt Jaeger helmet, which is correct for mg crews of the period, rather than the leather spiked picklehaube. I rather like to see groups of figures that have been sculpted to sort of morph together or into their surroundings, it somehow adds something to the design for me.

So what is your favorite toy soldier?

At the moment (and for a long time since) this chap has been a big favorite of mine, composition, made in Germany circa 1910 by Mars Hindenburg it stands about 9cm high.