I also have a number of original TROPHY Figure Moulds and a numer of Under two Flags items being casted again.
For the avoidance of doubt, we own the Rights (to those specific) sets NOT to the entire trophy range !!!). I DO own the entire U2F Range however, except for the Airfield buildings
Hi NZ SCOTS.
A wee river has flowed beneath the bridge since we posted the original albums.
Initial hopes have turned rather sour......
We purchased the surviving tooling from the now closed own N Z Fleurbaix TS Company (Abraham and Anastasia Simon). Or "so we thought"......
I did make a first run casting of U2F, and we have a "Mould" containing Indian Colonial and British Colonial Pith Helmeted figures, and some Mules. But they fail to cast up without flash and mould lines, and roughness. I have tried experimenting with counterweighting on the tooling, with moderate success.
I got a few as castings being deburred and cleaned up, but not a complete run of a full set....
THE U2F MOULD'S SURVIVING
There are some Camel Riders and R.C.M Police, a Colonial Gun Crew, Mounted Colonial Troops, a water wagon, Egyptian and Sudanese Infantry (with British Officers). A few of these MIGHT (I say MIGHT, I can't promise) cast up alright with some minor tinkering....
But "rough" figures are generaly resulting, not "interesting", which take hours and hours to pare away the flash and heavy lines and heavy oversized thick sprue gates made by A N OTHER non-original toolmaker.
I have cast up some Egyptian Sudanese soldiers, and a Colonial Gun crew team in Pith Helmets (not the same as the other Mountford ones). The stuff is badly flashed, with heavy join lines and takes an age to clean up....
This effectively means IF we sell any that are GOOD (we are putting together painted display models we might also sell one day), they are alas not likely to be very cheap....but rather expensive....
Sadly, upon delivery, though "sold the full range" and catalogue showing it all, and "all rights" rather a lot of the U2F items were missing (Masters) and the Moulds upon earlier first casting runs manifested severe warping and bending due to carelessness during the cargo shipping (which took fifty days and there was an incident of theft and pilfering of cargo contents.
They threw all the Moulds back inside, and they were not flatly stacked or stored after this, resulting in severe damage through twisting and bending.
Some of the stuff was so cracked and broken that it has been sadly written off. We had to inform the Insurance Investigator that the quantity of bent and broken, or plain stolen "missing" items has resulted in the Business simply not being rentable or able to make a realistic return of profit in this state.
Many Moulds and figures were stolen, leaving great big holes in the product range, impossible to now make again.
My wife and I have been terribly badly burned financially by all this, and we informed the N Z Police. It's left us some Thousands out of Pocket. For no positive gain or return commercially or even personaly.
We are pursuing the Cargo Theft and Pilfering Damage through an Insurance Investigator.
Many Moulds are bent (rather like the sellers and or shippers !!) and sadly can't be used seriously in production.
The actual number of merchantable figures or kits is so low from each run that it will never cover our time, effort, energy, or materials.
Re-making EVERYTHING (all moulds, all masters) is not a realistic, financially viable option; we did not purchase a scrap salvage operation, but a genuine, bona fide Business. This quite simply was not the case, and we finally bought what turns out to have been really a lot of leftover rubbish.
Sadly, this has proved true for DUCAL, ROSEDALE, and MOUNTFORD as well, with broken, smashed, incomplete Masters, Damaged Moulds, Missing Mould parts "Inserts" and a number of identical, but inferior, non-original non professional moulds. This is especially poor in the 120 mm larger figure series.
Other Moulds "painted over" turned out to be a mixture of Brian Wallace's Music in Miniature range and some Ducal tools.....another disaster we did not want to find. So the Music in Miniature range is all mixed up and far from what it was purported to be as well.
Other Moulds are NOT ORIGINAL but are substituted items made by somebody else (likely after Gregg Simon had an unexplained fire ). Many of our toolings are copied moulds, not balanced properly, stuffed full of mixed-up parts (some contain 120 mm and 54 mm parts), and just trying to get enough parts to assemble or make up a figure set or kit is a real nightmare, taking days and days and weeks of trouble.
We find Medieval mixed in with Victorian, 54mm with 120 and 100 mm, and many incomplete kits and figures that just can't any longer be made anymore as the mould masters are gone.....
If we CAN put together a GOOD set of the Mules and Figures you would like, we will let you know.
Thank you for your response.
I have found what you have written rather sad to read as I have been also burnt by so called producers and stopped trying to produce a range of model soldiers quite a number of years ago. Suffice to say that there are a number of characters out there that I would label as mercenaries. Enough said.
I have known Abram Simon for quite some time and was quite saddened by his passing which happened more sudden than what was anticipated. It was a blessing that his wife has family in Christchurch which no doubt supported his wife and child and will continue to do so.
Once again thank you for your response and I wish you well in your model soldier endeavors.
Thank you for your response.
Yes, the "Industry" is sadly in a rather "messed up state", and certain characters, such as some you refer to, are rather nasty, greedy, and sometimes even "Nazi" pieces of work who abuse our Hobby for their own nefarious purposes.
Abraham told me he felt they had a hand in his father's own sudden, unexpected passing a few years back.
During the selling of his Fleurbaix ranges, he was approached "unexpectedly" by someone else from Europe, in Sweden, with whom both Abraham and I have experienced some very nasty "problems" in the recent past.
Then suddenly the guy is DEAD!!!! @@(((((
I invested over forty thousand in Chota Sahib only to find it being stolen and pirated by the "other European connection" connection, and also by our own (now former !!) retailer in the UK. We invested thirty-five thousand in the surviving Abraham Simon ranges, only to find the goods were "accidentally on purpose" got at by somebody during shipping....
Anastasia Simon (or somebody purporting to be) wrote to me some time ago, offering to "sell" us the "rest of the Victorian artillery" range.
Trouble was, they were all MOUNTFORD product, which the real Simons had already sold to us before in 2023.
"The Complete Range" is what they sold us.....
When we replied, we got the message "No such address"......" Address does not exist"....
We sent several letters by Airmail to the address we had for them when we bought the ranges from them, but got no reply either.
Ana Simon (if the writer really were her) wrote that Abraham's family was being nasty to her and that they had taken all of his Money from her, leaving her in a bad way, hence she was again offering those products for sale....I just don't know what to think, having read what you wrote today.
It has always worried me what happened to Abraham, his wife and their children, and his Father Gregg, over there; we are fifteen thousand Miles away here, and limited in what we can or cannot do. Then Ana wrote to us (or somebody did at any rate), but when we replied, we never ever got to surely find out.
I want to be wrong, but I can not help but consider the possibility that the guy was helped out of this world by somebody in the "Industry".
He had just sold a large amount of Business ranges and would have had a great deal of money at that time, which sure could have been means, motive and opportunity....
We have had some rather intrusive, pushy, nosey, I would say "dodgy" people asking about our "Business", our "Suppliers", and trying to involve themselves in our commercial affairs.
I REFUSE to now do business with the "Industry" and will be seeking a series of commercial outlets to service and supply instead.
My wife and I are tired out with the rude, insulting, and back-stabbing "types" on the Forums and at some of the Shows.
Recently, we found a Belgian company had been stealing our work since 2010......@@((((
There is definitely more than "A bad smell" in the Industry, and a lot of Piracy, Copyright theft, and counterfeiting going on, and I more than suspect a lot of laundering of very dirty money goes into certain "producers" to service the inflated internal inflated false or "bubble" marketplace.
Some of the guys in this Business are very to the "RIGHT" if you know what I mean.
Fresh, new, and creative, innovative, and honest producers get bullied, put down, rubbished, pushed around, insulted, and even robbed and sabotaged by the "Industry" who seek to dominate and hold a greedy over oversized chunk of our Market, and it certainly seems some of them are not fussy about what they do or the methods they use to get their control over the Revenues.
That's what worries and greatly bothers me about just what really has happened over all this affair.
Abraham had the same problems we are now experiencing in the "Industry". Next, the guy is gone !!!
We think it is a right MAFIA and now avoid it like the Plague.
Thank you for telling us about Ana and Abraham's children. It's good to know they will be ok.
MAX
Thank you for your response.
I have found what you have written rather sad to read as I have been also burnt by so called producers and stopped trying to produce a range of model soldiers quite a number of years ago. Suffice to say that there are a number of characters out there that I would label as mercenaries. Enough said.
I have known Abram Simon for quite some time and was quite saddened by his passing which happened more sudden than what was anticipated. It was a blessing that his wife has family in Christchurch which no doubt supported his wife and child and will continue to do so.
Once again thank you for your response and I wish you well in your model soldier endeavors.
It now seems we are being blocked from accessing this TREEFROG Forum, our photo upload stopped working, our content is in inaccessible, and we cannot log in easily either.
Several Treefrog memberships, all gone the same nasty identical way, the "Thread nazis" on here have sure got some weirdo and strange "rules".
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