Getting restarted with Toy Soldiers (1 Viewer)

[STG44]

I have recently become reinterested in collecting toy soldiers. My collection is small compared to most people here. Due to my space constraints I expect it to stay relatively small and restricted to individual figures that interest me.

In looking around on this forum, I marvel at some of the collections people have and the dioramas that they have created. It's almost like a trip to the museum for me.

As a boy in the late 1960s and 1970s I lived in New York City and bought mostly boxed sets of Britain's and Timpo painted plastic figures--ranging from WWII allied and Axis, to knights, to Highlanders, to Scot's Guards to Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to Romans and Trojans, some Turks, Arabs, and French Foreign Legion. I also had a few Elastolin figures. I also had a fort or two from FAO Swartz and s castle or two from Elastolin.

Fast forward to the late 1990s and discovered Ebay and looked through various categories of toy soldiers and found out exactly what I had. I still had all of my soldiers carefully boxed up and well-preserved. I unboxed them and figured out what I had. In looking at some of the other figures available I found myself attracted to the Elastolin and Preiser 70mm Normans and Vikings and bought a about two dozen of them, along with some Lansquenets. After a while I bought what I wanted and lost interest. I really liked the Normans and the detail present, since when I was a kid the Britain

Fast forward to a few months ago. I again took a look at Ebay and discovered a whole new world of Britains and some other makers other 1/30 scale soldiers. These are individual pewter figures with painstaking detail. I have bought about 20+ of them. I buy figures that interest me--their looks, their pose, etc. At first I concentrated on Britain's wrath of the Northman Vikings and Saxon figures. Then I bought a few Woodland Indians, now I am mostly buying Britain's WWI British soldiers, some WWII Germans and Americans, with a few others thrown in. I've also bought some King and Country and Thomas Gunn thrown in. I also bought some Conte Warlord figures, since I have always been a big fan of that movie.

Anyway, that's how I got back started again. I would be interested in hearing how people got started or restarted in this hobby.

 

[THE SHOOTIST]

Growing up, I had hundreds of plastics, Lido, Timmee, MPC and bunches of vehicles and playsets. I had a huge sandpile next to my house in Maine that led to the lake. I'd spend all day building a fortress, using scraps of lumber to support the roofs. I'd man it with soldiers and vehicles, and then I'd destroy it. I'd fill our big galvanized bathtub with pails of water, and tip it over flooding the fortress, destroying the hours of work I'd put in, and then I'd dig everything out. To this day, despite not owning this house, the new owner tells me that this pile surrenders soldiers after every heavy rainfall.

Fast forward what seems like 100 years and my son wants me to build him a sandbox. Naturally, I build it "alcoholically" 10' X 10' X 10". It took about 20 trips to Home Depot and nearly blew the suspension in out minivan hauling back the "Playsand" to fill it.

Then came the soldiers. You'd think I'd be able to find some locally. K-Mart, WalMart, Tagret all a bust. No soldiers. I finally found some at Walgreens with a couple tanks. The classic Timmee M-16 soldiers and the tanks. I gave them to him and he went to town in the sandbox, like I did. Later, I found some Lido soldiers in an old coffee can that I found in the basement. I had painted these when I was young and had the measles, and they survived moving several times. These became his favorites, and he'd carry them everywhere he went. One afternoon, we were looking at the internet, and I was showing him how to search for things, and we searched "Toy Soldiers". We found that the "Hobby Bunker" was a few miles from us, so we loaded up the minivan and paid them a visit. Wow, what a place. I spent a little money, and both he, his sister and myself were hooked once again. We stick to plastics and paint them ourselves, and scratchbuild dioramas. Great way to express our artistic side, spend time together as a family, and pass the time on rainy or cold snowy days. Sure beats having them stare at I-Pods.

 

[STG44]

Then came the soldiers. You'd think I'd be able to find some locally. K-Mart, WalMart, Tagret all a bust. No soldiers. I finally found some at Walgreens with a couple tanks. The classic Timmee M-16 soldiers and the tanks. I gave them to him and he went to town in the sandbox, like I did. Later, I found some Lido soldiers in an old coffee can that I found in the basement. I had painted these when I was young and had the measles, and they survived moving several times. These became his favorites, and he'd carry them everywhere he went. One afternoon, we were looking at the internet, and I was showing him how to search for things, and we searched "Toy Soldiers". We found that the "Hobby Bunker" was a few miles from us, so we loaded up the minivan and paid them a visit. Wow, what a place. I spent a little money, and both he, his sister and myself were hooked once again. We stick to plastics and paint them ourselves, and scratchbuild dioramas. Great way to express our artistic side, spend time together as a family, and pass the time on rainy or cold snowy days. Sure beats having them stare at I-Pods.

That's great to hear.

I am amazed that Walgreens even had them. They are not my normal drug store. I was in one recently and they only had about four different deodorants--none of which were the brand I use. Stores seem to calculate their shelf space by the inch in regards to profitability.

I don't have children, but I get the feeling that toys as we knew them (I'm in my 50s) are completely different than they were in our days. It doesn't seem that they have the variety of toys like the simple plastic toy soldiers that we could buy in any drug store.

In my day there were painted plastic Britains soldiers available, various Marx toys, while things like Elastolin that were typically sold as individual soldiers were a more delicate, more detailed, and definitely more expensive.

There were also the green plastic toy soldiers that you could buy in a bag in most drugstores, or a bag of plastic cowboys and Indians. Department stores had a wide variety of Louis Marx company toys, plastic figures, and playsets.

Now it seems that toy soldiers are strictly the realm of the collector.

I would not want to give a young child a $25-$75 carefully painted figure that has parts that could break. This would be something for an older child who is more careful.

 

[W.D.E.]

I'm fairly young and I don't have the memories of the old Marx stuff, etc that most of the members on this forum do.I started out buying the $20 boxed American Revolution and Civil War BMC playsets from Toys R Us when I was a kid. I played for hours outside in the dirt and muck and mud with those soldiers! As I got older, Toys R Us stopped selling those playsets . After I couldn't find them anymore, I just stopped playing with toy soldiers in general. Flash forward to when I was about 14 or so and I came upon a History magazine at my local Wal-Mart (as with most collectors, I love history) and as I was skimming thru the pages I came upon an add for classictoysoldiers.com and all kinds of memories started flooding back to me! needless to say, I went straight home and started browsing the website. I was a little dismayed to see that prices had gone up from $20 for a boxed playset to hundreds of dollars and being the kid that I was, that took the wind out of my sails, I couldn't afford any playset that costs hundreds of dollars! I also didn't dare ask my parents for one for my birthday or even Christmas, as I knew that just wasn't feasible. So, I started saving my money and buying small lots, ranging from 15 to 30 or so dollars. This kept my interest in toy soldiers smoldering. As I got older and figured out how to search the web more efficiently, I stumbled upon the likes of Conteco.com and others. I immediately fell in love with the detail in these plastic figures ( I was around 18 or 19 at the time) more searching the web led me to the likes of WBritain, K&C and other pewter/metal figures. The remarkable detail of the pewter/resin figures blew my mind! I remember working a Summer job in the Georgia heat saving up for the Conte Crater Civil War playset (to which I still have). Today, I collect some plastic figures but mostly the pewter/metal figures, it's still hard for me to purchase figures on a whim, some price points are a tad too steep (even in my adult years). I'll collect any line, Woodland Indians to Knights and Saracens, any figure that catches my eye with a distinct pose, or colors and I'm down to buy it.

 

[THE SHOOTIST]

I came upon an add for classictoysoldiers.com and all kinds of memories started flooding back to me! needless to say, I went straight home and started browsing the website. I was a little dismayed to see that prices had gone up from $20 for a boxed playset to hundreds of dollars.

Shocking isn't it?

Little story:
I took my son to see "Flags of our Fathers". He immediately became interested in the Iwo Jima campaign. He decided that he wanted the BMC Iwo Jima playset for Christmas. I ordered it from classictoysoldiers.com as I had done some shopping there before, and was impressed with their customer service. What "classic" sent me was THEIR "Iwo Jima" playset, which went for about $389.00 at the time. He spent weeks looking at the BMC, and talking about the Suribachi and the bunkers that came with the playset. I called "classic" and told them of the mix-up. I just didn't feel right taking a nearly $400.00 playset when I only paid for a $60.00 one. The gentleman on the phone was shocked that I was honest, and was sending their version back, and that I even paid for the shipping back to them. They sent me the BMC set and a "bagged set" of figures as a bonus. I've recently purchased the new U.S. GI's and the new Germans, as well as the North Koreans and Chinese, and they always continue to send me more figures than I order.

They're a great company to deal with.

 

[W.D.E.]

Shocking isn't it?

Little story:
I took my son to see "Flags of our Fathers". He immediately became interested in the Iwo Jima campaign. He decided that he wanted the BMC Iwo Jima playset for Christmas. I ordered it from classictoysoldiers.com as I had done some shopping there before, and was impressed with their customer service. What "classic" sent me was THEIR "Iwo Jima" playset, which went for about $389.00 at the time. He spent weeks looking at the BMC, and talking about the Suribachi and the bunkers that came with the playset. I called "classic" and told them of the mix-up. I just didn't feel right taking a nearly $400.00 playset when I only paid for a $60.00 one. The gentleman on the phone was shocked that I was honest, and was sending their version back, and that I even paid for the shipping back to them. They sent me the BMC set and a "bagged set" of figures as a bonus. I've recently purchased the new U.S. GI's and the new Germans, as well as the North Koreans and Chinese, and they always continue to send me more figures than I order.

They're a great company to deal with.

I've had nothing but great experiences with them as well. I haven't ordered a playset from them (yet) as I don't have that much to spend at one time. I add bits and pieces from them to my plastic ACW figures and sets. I have had my eye on their Battle of Yorktown playset and their Giant Pickett's Charge playset with the Trioni custom print on the box.