A love of history - a love of toy soldiers (1 Viewer)

[zblang]

I have yet to meet a collector who isn't also a huge fan of history. Do these two always go hand in hand or are there some of you out there who just flat out love the toy soldiers, but the history depicted doesn't matter all that much?

It's a great by product of this hobby to me. I have always loved history, but every so often there is a new release that comes out in a subject matter I am unfamiliar with. Be it a battle I don't know about or a person I don't know, I love when this happens and then have to look it up and learn some more.

This just happened with AeroArt's Vercingetorix's surrender to Caesar. I knew absolutely nothing about this. I saw the figure and read all about it. AND THEN it cost me money bc of course, I then had to buy the **** thing! ^&grin

 

[bradleyl30]

For me, the love of history, historical fiction and an interest in what motivates humans to create history led me to seek physical representations of what I was/am studying. This combined with a childhood growing up on military bases, and playing with "true" toy soldiers and vehicles seemed to have created a perfect storm in me about years ago just as an auto-immune disease was causing me to curb my activities a great deal.

Now the symptoms of the disease are under control so my toy soldier hobby, love of studying history, passion for sailing and new marriage are all struggling to coexist!

Like so much of life, I have found things to be a cycle. Studying history drove me to seek out toy soldiers / history in miniature which then expands my desire to study more history. On and on it goes!

 

[Louis Badolato]

For me its primarily a love of history, but also a sense of nostalgia. I love, study, and through reading this forum, consistently learn more about the history (there are some really knowledgeable members on this forum, like Al, who has forgotten more about WWI aviation than I will ever know), but I am also drawn to Toy Soldiers because I loved them, as well as Dinky and Corgi military vehicles, and various manufacturers' model kits, when I was a kid. This hobby reminds me a lot of the joy I had as a kid my son's age, when I did a good job building a Bandii 1:48 scale model of a German armored vehicle, or painting an airfix or Ral Partha toy soldier.:smile2:

 

[PanzerAce1944]

I would tend to say the majority of TS collectors are History buffs as well. My interest is WWII ETO and that is what I buy.