Another dealer, who had obviously been up far too early and was trying to catch forty winks, had a variety of boxed military toys and in particular, a lovely Crescent Fortress which was complete with its contingent of six lead knights. The castle was well finished in tinplate and the whole set looked quite fresh: he was looking for a little over £400. Another interesting item on his stand was the Hillco fabric hospital tent, which contained lead nurses and some wounded troops: this was tagged at £240.
Roger Maryon had some of the most desirable lead on the day, including a very scarce pre-war Britains boxed set of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The first he’d ever had for sale, he’d tentatively priced it at £850. Although the box was a little tatty, it begged the question of where you’d find another – and it even contained the original complaints slip! Equally scarce was a pre-war Britains Girl Guide set, again boxed: this was marked up at £750. To accompany this was a group of unboxed boy scouts with a cart and log. Also spotted was that perennial favourite, the Britains Village Idiot: stupidity now its price, it would seem, since this figure was just short of £200.
Fantastic plastic
I always think that a good barometer of the toy soldier market is to be found in the ever-popular Britains Swoppet knight. This range, which made its debut in late 1960s, was never really surpassed and must represent one of the high spots of 20th century toy production. Several dealers had stock and mounted knights are still selling for around £35, which in my book means that there’s no sign of this sector drooping in the foreseeable future.
Kits: does anyone still make them? The sole stand to contain such merchandise was being manned by Peter Harris who was being assisted by his daughter, Charlotte. According to Peter, he’d have happily taken an offer for the lot, so slow is business in that sector at the moment. It was just as well, perhaps, that he’d brought along some other, more saleable wares. The Britains Red Indians from the 1960s were pre-Hong Kong and marked up at £6 a foot, £10 mounted, although sadly some of them had lost their daggers and, so far as I know, no-one is replicating this elusive item. Equally interesting was a set of flats in pewter, as always, 40mm in scale, and this time depicting some Colonial cavalry: these were inexpensive at £20 for the lot.
Plastic, for many, is the cheap side of collecting and the show once again proved that you didn’t have to spend a mint to build up your collection. Dr Stefano Allorini of Saimex had travelled over from Italy with some homegrown produce, namely Fontanini miniatures. These 54mm Italian figurines were manufactured in the 1960s are quite delicate and attractive. A box full of pirates and Red Indians was quickly snapped up since they were pegged at just £1 each. Stefano also had some Italian army badges at £3 each a reported that the hobby was holding up well in Italy, despite everything.
Jean-Claude Druart from Belgium is another dealer who often brings along plastic to the show. In March his strangest articles had to be an assortment of plastic Chinese musical instruments, which were little gems: they included brass instruments as well as cellos, violins and guitars. Some, through a little clockwork mechanism, could be made to play a tune and all were housed in velvet-lined cases. Selling for a few Euros each, they were great talking points. An Elastolin Diligence or Stagecoach, with two horses, one passenger and driver, was in good condition and was priced at £140 whilst for £4 a time he had plenty of Wild West 7cm figures from the same maker. Finally, for anyone interested in zinc-based, semi-flat Russian figures drawn from the pages of its 20th century history, he had just the thing: make unknown, these 1960s 54mm soldiers were certainly unusual and were for sale at Euros4 each.
English dealer Steve Viccars always has plenty of plastic but his most curious toy was actually wooden. The liner, of which he knew nothing save that it bore the Queen Mary logo on the bows, was well made and came with a complement of diecast lifeboats. Three wooden spheres partly sunk into the underside of its hull flagged it up as a potential carpet boat and not someone’s handiwork. It required a couple of short masts or radio poles to finish it off and for this rather unusual subject he was hoping to get £15. Rather more expensive was the Charbens blue and cream Hovis bread van and horse, with baker figure, one of two spotted at the event. This was unboxed and in good overall condition save that the wagon had lost one shaft, although this might have been copied from the one that was left. The all-important Hovis decals were clean, though, and Steve had priced it at £75.
From plastic to resin: Dave Freeman from Bath, with a stall given over to the Napoleonic era, is being kept busy with painting orders, despite the recession. A large scale resin kit from him will set you back around £39 whilst painted it works out at £130. Dave is an award-winning painter and so you know the result will be spot-on. He also had a gigantic Tamiya Tiger tank that had been finished in winter camouflage and which was populated with half a dozen S&T German figures: it was sold and was hopefully going off to New Zealand.
For John Begg, plastic is the only medium in which to trade. Timpo, Britains, Kleeware, Tudor Rose and Airfix dominated the stand and there were plenty of polythene Airfix HO/OO tanks and armour at £10 a time for starters. Three Airfix boxed buildings (the Strongpoint, the Bamboo House and the Desert Outpost) were all in the £30-50 bracket whilst a Lone*Star Harvey set of eight divers, in a replacement box, was quite a sight at £60.
Adrian Little was another with plastic but this wasn’t your common or garden variety. A German board game, dating from the middle 1930s, Tak Tik was based on strategy. What made it interesting from the historian’s point of view was that it contained plastic pieces, which must have been revolutionary at the time. Bombs, tanks and eagles were some of the subjects depicted and a lovely time-warp box lid actually featured monochrome scenes of German troops in action. At around £100 it wasn’t cheap but it was certainly unusual.
White metal: still selling well
Gareth Morgan of Welsh company Morgan Miniatures was proudly displaying his latest additions, namely the High Chaparral figures (which included “new to the market” Mexican bandits) alongside some useful Indians with bows and arrows. The bandits retail at £8.50 for the bare casting whilst they can be supplied beautifully painted at £22. He now has a US outlet for his range (that includes Incas and mediaeval figures) and reports steady trade.
Other metal subjects included the Russian lines from Soldier Art. At the show George Johnson and Michael von Kolpinski were displaying some breathtaking miniatures from the CIS. Painted by students studying art at universities there, you can readily imagine the quality of the finished product. The range is drawn from various sources over there, not just one company, and prices have crept up since last year because of the failing pound. A foot figure cost £55 in 2008 but now sells for £75-80 whilst cavalry start
out at £220… Predictably, it’s the colourful historical periods that people want, so Ancients and mediaevals are good sellers.
At Maison Militaire it was a similar story. The standholders had brought along an enormous selection of immaculately-painted 1:32 scale figurines, from the Biblical days right up to the American Civil War. In amongst them were Britains subjects (now painted in China, of course) as well as Russian models. With this kind of quality now in the marketplace and readily available, it must be putting modellers off their paintbrushes. For Clive at grey Goose Collectables, it was more of the same although his range tends to focus on the second world war. Again, his miniatures are made and painted in China (in Shanghai) and are usually limited to around 120 pieces. Everything from the enormous German rail gun through boats, jeeps, bombers, rockets and tanks, together with accompanying figures, is available – and it all looks impressive, needless to say. His B17 Flying Fortress was finished as the Memphis Belle (start saving: it’s just shy of £600!) whilst a Willys jeep in the same scale retails at £69. The Tiger Tank on the stand was cut away to show the detail inside: some 900 parts go to make this weighty model.
Sundry dealing
Joe Lee had something on his stand that isn’t often encountered: A Bullock Model of an anti-tank gun. Bullock was a Brighton company and the box, which he still had, bore the MSR Toys rubric. It was a hefty piece of work, with opening trail arms and a working mechanism, the whole running on Dunlop-marked tyres. Best of all was the fact that once the gun breech was cocked, you had to pull on a little lanyard to fire the shell, just like the real thing. At £40 it seemed good value. A Britains boxed plastic catapult was keeping it company, this latter marked up at £20.
Finally, Tony Harrington had another most unusual toy, one that no-one at the show had ever seen before. It was a larger (rather than large) scale machine gun mounted on a tripod that took caps and so provided plenty of aural entertainment. Too small to be used with Lone*Star type pistols yet clearly too big for even the biggest toy soldiers, it was well-made in tinplate and metal. From Benbros, and with its box, it was for sale at £40.
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