Please help identify (1 Viewer)

[Ambivalence]

Looks like Russian traffic police and nkvd lady
There are no markings on them. Bought in antique store.
Thanks

 

[DMNamiot]

I have a few like this as well. I found mine in a small store In Baltimore about 15 years ago. They only had stickers on the bottom saying made in USSR

No idea of maker but they are a neat find

Dave

 

[theBaron]

Yeah, I have similar figures. I bought them at flea markets in the early 90s, as Russians were making their way here after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They'd show up with a trunkload of Russian products, like matriushka dolls and lacquerware, silks, Red Army surplus items, and toy soldiers. I was surprised to see that metal soldiers were still sold as toys there, long after they had been replaced by plastic here in the West. And they ranged from toy quality, to the early connoisseur style, and often the same casting, painted to different grades of quality. I didn't collect the connoisseur figures, but I wish now that I had bought those. For a pair of jeans, you could have had a car trunkful.

I've got a couple of figures with bases similar to these-oblong, and stepped. One is a figure of Suvarov, another is a Cossack from the civil wars. I have a Red Army officer wearing the shlem helmet, on a cast base, larger, cast as a square. I have seen similar figures and castings since then, on tables at shows, and on eBay. Sergei Ilyashenko had some in his old Lead Army catalog. I've thought that they probably come from the same source, the same molds.

Prost!
Brad

 

[DMNamiot]

Hi Brad
Sounds like we shopped at the same stores! I have a red army officer in the helmet as well as a figure of Stalin and a female Soviet troop like the one pictured.
During my travels in Eastern Europe I also found a nice selection of semi round Soviet sailors at a shop in Tallin Estonia that sold militaria and other things from their occupation. I liked that they used metal for so many years. But I also liked the other materials that were used like hardened rubber or resins. The soldiers I brought back from those travels have a special spot in my collection

Dave

 

[theBaron]

Back in the 90s, I got a catalog, too, of Russian and Eastern Europe products, mostly army surplus, but also civilian items. There were a lot of East German uniform items, including the marching boots they still used.

It also contained toy soldiers. I remember seeing the Big Three figures in the catalog, too-Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, seated, as at Yalta.

I was interested to see pocket watches in that catalog, that were proper mechanical watches, not electric. I took it as a sign of the USSR's general backwardness, that watches with movements were still so common, whereas quartz or other electronic watches were so commonplace everywhere else.

I regret a little bit that I never ordered anything from the catalog, and also, that I didn't save any of them. They would be interesting references today.

Prost!
Brad

 

[DMNamiot]

Funny I never saw that catalog but I do have a Russian pocket watch that is from that time frame and is a mechanical one. I like it because it’s mechanical and wish we had more things like it.

Dave

 

[Russoldiers]

Looks like Russian traffic police and nkvd lady
There are no markings on them. Bought in antique store.
Thanks

Hello.
Yes, one figure is a Soviet (not Russian) road policeman in winter uniform - ГАИ (State Auto Inspection). This is a very old figure. One of the earliest manufacturers of toy soldiers and historical miniatures in the Soviet Union, the "Steks" company produced this figure in 1985-1993. If I'm not mistaken, the author of this model, Andrey Karashchuk, is a well-known Russian artist of military illustration. "Steks" ceased to exist in 1995. I think this is not an original figure, but a fake copy, of which there are many in Russia and Ukraine. Nevertheless, this figure is very rare even as a copy.
Best regards, Mikhail Tsarev, www.russolder.art