Mystery Medics

These stretcher bearers and nurse are solid lead (and very heavy!), they stand about 50mm high and the scuplting is very crude to put it mildly. I've never seen anything like them so they could be home cast or some sort of artisan production, they were included in a larger lot of British made figures that I bought but I assume them to be French because of the horizon blue uniforms but the strange shape of their peak caps makes me wonder about that, perhaps they could be WW1 Austrians or Romanians.

The King and Country London Toy Soldier show is being held this Saturday and I hope to attend, if so I'll post a report. I say hope to attend because the show clashes with our annual street party at which I have unexplicably and utterly stupidly agreed to take part in a cake baking competition. The competition is only open to the men of the street and the only rule is that wives may not assist in any way. I don't bake, in fact I barely recognise the big metal box that is our cooker, I am told there has been a very low level of entries, in fact I may be in a class of one, needless to say I am desperately trying to back peddle out of this.

PZG Samurai

These plastic Samurai were made in Poland, probably during the 1960's and possibly by PZG, the Polish society for the Deaf, they stand about 60/65mm high. I don't know if the brown paint is original but it may be that they were painted to make them look like terracota, I am sorely tempted to strip and repaint them and it is only the backlog of existing painting projects that prevents me entering into this act of vandalism.

Homecast toy soldiers

Making your own toys soldiers at home has long been a popular pastime, perhaps not so much in recent decades with the universal shift towards political correctness and safety concerns, but there used to be a big market for the sale of moulds to cast your own in lead. Homecasting moulds were sold extensively across Europe and the U.S. under many diffferent trade names but the figure designs invariably come back to one company in Germany, Gebr. Schneider (Schneider Brothers).

Sometimes enterprising individuals would produce figures from these moulds and paint them to a good standard for resale (as I suspect is the case with the first figure above) but mostly they were cast to a poor standard from whatever mix of metals could be found, often fishing weights or, according to urban myth, lead stripped from the church roof! The figures are mostly about 40mm high but size varies all the way up to about 60mm. They are exactly the sort of toy soldier that you will dig up in your back garden, crushed and suffering greatly from lead rot, and then be disappointed when you put it up on ebay and it dosen't sell. They are generally very crude and get little interest from collectors but I rather like them and they are great for playing wargames.

Les Ecossaise

A Highland piper in glengarry and a standard bearer, an unusual pose for for the Scots, French made plastics of unknown manufacturer, probably made during the 1960's

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.