King & Country
Captain
- Joined
- May 23, 2005
- Messages
- 5,166
Dear Forum,
I was shocked to hear of the death of our good friend Michael Hall who with his beloved wife Myszka founded ‘SIERRA TOY SOLDIERS’.
All of us at King & Country had known and worked with SIERRA and Mike & Myszka for many years all the way back to the old ‘West Coaster Show’ days in the 1990s.
During that time as Mike and Myszka built up their business to become a major dealer and retailer in the hobby I was fortunate to work closely with them on the ‘SIERRA K&C EVENING’ at the West Coaster and later at the ‘Special Saturday Events’ at their fantastic store in Los Gatos for over 10 years.
Those Los Gatos weekends were amazing, they always took place the week before Chicago when myself and often my late brother Gordon would arrive at San Francisco Airport on the Friday. Mike would pick us up and then drive to Los Gatos where Myszka would join us for dinner.
All day Saturday would be spent in the store located right in the heart of Main Street, Los Gatos where we would meet with a big bunch of Sierra’s collector base before doing a little toy soldier talk and the usual ‘Q&A’ afterwards… A whole lot of fun!
On the Sunday, Mike & Myszka would take Gordon and myself to one of a dozen great destinations around that part of California.
One time we visited Alcatraz… another visit was to beautiful Big Sur… yet one more was to the incredible Carmel-By-The-Sea… Our last visit, a few years ago, was to see and climb aboard a B29 Bomber that flew into a nearby airport. You never knew where Mike would drive to… So these Sunday ‘Magical Mystery Tours’ were very special.
One of the most exciting and interesting was Mike’s tour with Gordon and me attached to the Jacques Littlefield Collection.
At that time Jacques possessed the largest, most extensive private collection WW2 armour in the world – more than 300 different types including no less than 9 different Sherman tanks alone and all kinds or rare German tracked vehicles. In his workshop was a rare Panther tank actually being rebuilt!
Thanks to Mike, Jacques himself guided us all around his amazing collection for several hours allowing us to climb up on several of the collection.
Mike, like most of us, was a man of strong opinions and didn’t mind sharing them. We didn’t always agree but we could still have fun arguing and could always remain friendly.
Along with Myszka he built SIERRA into a major force in California and beyond and had fun doing it.
His passing will be a huge loss to his family, especially Myszka and to this hobby of ours.
Although Mike is now gone the fond memories of many happy times with him remains. Our sincerest condolences to Myszka, the family and all his many friends,
Andy & All at King & Country
I was shocked to hear of the death of our good friend Michael Hall who with his beloved wife Myszka founded ‘SIERRA TOY SOLDIERS’.
All of us at King & Country had known and worked with SIERRA and Mike & Myszka for many years all the way back to the old ‘West Coaster Show’ days in the 1990s.
During that time as Mike and Myszka built up their business to become a major dealer and retailer in the hobby I was fortunate to work closely with them on the ‘SIERRA K&C EVENING’ at the West Coaster and later at the ‘Special Saturday Events’ at their fantastic store in Los Gatos for over 10 years.
Those Los Gatos weekends were amazing, they always took place the week before Chicago when myself and often my late brother Gordon would arrive at San Francisco Airport on the Friday. Mike would pick us up and then drive to Los Gatos where Myszka would join us for dinner.
All day Saturday would be spent in the store located right in the heart of Main Street, Los Gatos where we would meet with a big bunch of Sierra’s collector base before doing a little toy soldier talk and the usual ‘Q&A’ afterwards… A whole lot of fun!
On the Sunday, Mike & Myszka would take Gordon and myself to one of a dozen great destinations around that part of California.
One time we visited Alcatraz… another visit was to beautiful Big Sur… yet one more was to the incredible Carmel-By-The-Sea… Our last visit, a few years ago, was to see and climb aboard a B29 Bomber that flew into a nearby airport. You never knew where Mike would drive to… So these Sunday ‘Magical Mystery Tours’ were very special.
One of the most exciting and interesting was Mike’s tour with Gordon and me attached to the Jacques Littlefield Collection.
At that time Jacques possessed the largest, most extensive private collection WW2 armour in the world – more than 300 different types including no less than 9 different Sherman tanks alone and all kinds or rare German tracked vehicles. In his workshop was a rare Panther tank actually being rebuilt!
Thanks to Mike, Jacques himself guided us all around his amazing collection for several hours allowing us to climb up on several of the collection.
Mike, like most of us, was a man of strong opinions and didn’t mind sharing them. We didn’t always agree but we could still have fun arguing and could always remain friendly.
Along with Myszka he built SIERRA into a major force in California and beyond and had fun doing it.
His passing will be a huge loss to his family, especially Myszka and to this hobby of ours.
Although Mike is now gone the fond memories of many happy times with him remains. Our sincerest condolences to Myszka, the family and all his many friends,
Andy & All at King & Country
