theBaron
Major
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2008
- Messages
- 10,460
Evening, all!
I thought it was time to get back to toy soldiers, after all of the peripheral stuff we've been posting and accumulating demerits about, causing people to put us on their ignore lists.
Tonight's puzzle consists of two figures I won off eBay this week, from the seller iltis. If you remember, he was the seller from whom Oldboy bought his Rose Marlburian infantry figures. He is a good source for me, for Staddens and other classic manufacturers. I recommend him to those who are interested.
Well, this week, he had two auctions up, one each for the two figures shown below:
Now, these caught my eye immediately in my eBay search, because I could see that the represented figures from the 18th Century, whether Seven Years War or American Revolution. As a matter of fact, they were described as "Brunswick dragoon" and "Pvt, Jaeger Company".
The pictures on eBay gave me a good idea of the condition of the figures; they're well-done, in a style almost reminiscent of our forum brother John, "beating retreat", particularly in the way the figures' faces are executed.
The figures themselves are solid-cast, and are a "true" 54mm, that is, they are roughly comparable to classic Britains in their size. The castings are well-executed, the details are crisp.
Now, this thread is titled, "Norman Cooke", because the figures have hand-written paper labels glued to the undersides of the bases, with that name, and a description of each figure's unit:
I've never heard of Norman Cooke; my guess is that he is the person who painted these figures, but that they may be commercially available kit figures or castings. Again, their size is on the smaller side, comparable to some of the German makers' figures, like Hecker-Goros, or Puchala. But neither of those two have figures like these in their catalogs, that I know of.
So I'm throwing this one out there to my fellow toy soldier sleuths. First, has anyone ever heard of Norman Cooke (it occurred to me, he could even be a member of our forum, or some other forum, but we'd know him perhaps by a Web handle)?
Second, have you ever seen these castings, or similar ones?
I had thought of repainting them, when I first bid on them on eBay, but when they arrived and I opened the box, I decided that I wouldn't. Even though these are probably painted by a hobbyist, they're as nice as many figures coming out of commercial shops today, so I'm leaving them as they are. Plus, it's close enough to my style that they'll fit in with the rest of my figures.
I hope we can have some fun trying to track these down, prost!
Brad
I thought it was time to get back to toy soldiers, after all of the peripheral stuff we've been posting and accumulating demerits about, causing people to put us on their ignore lists.
Tonight's puzzle consists of two figures I won off eBay this week, from the seller iltis. If you remember, he was the seller from whom Oldboy bought his Rose Marlburian infantry figures. He is a good source for me, for Staddens and other classic manufacturers. I recommend him to those who are interested.
Well, this week, he had two auctions up, one each for the two figures shown below:
Now, these caught my eye immediately in my eBay search, because I could see that the represented figures from the 18th Century, whether Seven Years War or American Revolution. As a matter of fact, they were described as "Brunswick dragoon" and "Pvt, Jaeger Company".
The pictures on eBay gave me a good idea of the condition of the figures; they're well-done, in a style almost reminiscent of our forum brother John, "beating retreat", particularly in the way the figures' faces are executed.
The figures themselves are solid-cast, and are a "true" 54mm, that is, they are roughly comparable to classic Britains in their size. The castings are well-executed, the details are crisp.
Now, this thread is titled, "Norman Cooke", because the figures have hand-written paper labels glued to the undersides of the bases, with that name, and a description of each figure's unit:
I've never heard of Norman Cooke; my guess is that he is the person who painted these figures, but that they may be commercially available kit figures or castings. Again, their size is on the smaller side, comparable to some of the German makers' figures, like Hecker-Goros, or Puchala. But neither of those two have figures like these in their catalogs, that I know of.
So I'm throwing this one out there to my fellow toy soldier sleuths. First, has anyone ever heard of Norman Cooke (it occurred to me, he could even be a member of our forum, or some other forum, but we'd know him perhaps by a Web handle)?
Second, have you ever seen these castings, or similar ones?
I had thought of repainting them, when I first bid on them on eBay, but when they arrived and I opened the box, I decided that I wouldn't. Even though these are probably painted by a hobbyist, they're as nice as many figures coming out of commercial shops today, so I'm leaving them as they are. Plus, it's close enough to my style that they'll fit in with the rest of my figures.
I hope we can have some fun trying to track these down, prost!
Brad