Seeking information about Miniwelt (1 Viewer)

[sceic2]

Have any of my fellow collectors had any experiences dealing with Miniwelt? They have what appears to be a quality figure, although more expensive than K&C. I tried to access their web site but was denined authorization (a 401 error appeared). I read somewhere in the forum that buyers should be cautious when ordering from Germany. Is this a concern with Miniwelt, they are in Berlin. When I look at their eBay feedback page all appears well - 100% positive with some of the buyers located in the US. Just wondering if there is any experiences you may have had or if someone has some of their figures, would you buy more? Thanks to all, Michael

 

[howelltrh]

I ordered a set of French Napoleonic line artillerymen from Miniwelt in March. The only place I could find this maker's figures online was at ebay where they display about 100 figures at a time. When I bought the figures they said it would take about 4 weeks, maybe because they make them to order. Anyway they came yesterday and they are gorgeous! Some of the best sculpted and painted figures I have ever seen. I was just completely blown away. They were well packed and nothing broken. They are exactly to scale with K&C and Del Prado and fit perfectly with masses of those troops. Because Miniwelt figures are expensive I plan to just sprinkle a few of them among the hordes of K&C for effect. Highly recommend.

 

[fishead19690]

I had the same problem geting on the mini welt site with the eror screen. I thought it was just my computor. I think it might have something to do with my computors security setting But i,m the last guy to talk to about computor technical problems. My computor was down for almost a month. I think that the casting for Mini welt_ tin bay _and figurine emporium are all the same but painted by different painters. I,ve seen the same exact poses at tin bay and figurine E. but the painting is a little different and those two also flog the base of the figures. I have a few of them and yes the size is a perfect fit with K&C but 3 times the price but, they make great gap fillers for the figures that K&C hasn,t made. I,ll try and find a link for you.http://tinbay.com/http://www.figurineemporium.com/

 

[howelltrh]

I have now bought a fair number of Miniwelt figures. Although you can't access the site in Germany you can buy a CD on ebay that shows the whole line, which is two big Napoleonic series, Waterloo and Austerlitz. Figurine Emporium also sent me a CD although you can see their line on their website. Some of the Austerlitz figures can be used for Waterloo, such as cuirassiers. Figurine Emporium offers many of the same figures. The quality is extraordinary. The metal alloy is very strong, I've inadvertently dropped or bent some of mine, my kids stepped on a few, and they haven't broken so far.

The infantry sometimes have little touches like bundles of firewood, tools, strapped on their packs. Some of the cavalry have arms and heads that require gluing on. The flags are exquisite. They come packed well without breakage. However they sometimes are packed with myriad small styrofoam balls that maddeningly spill onto carpets and clothing and stick to everything with static electricity (hint -- use tape to pick them up. Do NOT open the boxes on a shag carpet)

I gather they will make figures to order within some bounds, if you are willing to wait, in other words if you want slight variations in particular poses and paint jobs so that no two are exactly identical. They blend in perfectly with K&C, are probably 60mm scale. Miniwelt figures cost about 3 times what K&C figures do. So the reason to buy them is to fill in gaps in the K&C line. I wouldn't bother with Scots Greys except poses that are very different from what K&C offers. Miniwelt makes standing loading Black Watch and other poses that nicely augment and fit in well with K&C sets. They make Cameron highlanders with an accurate rendition of the plaid. Unfortunately Minewelt does not make many of the ordinary type soldiers that made up the bulk of the Napoleonic armies. No Prussian infantry of any kind. Hardly any French fusiliers (although some very nice line voltigeurs and grenadiers). No british or Prussian artillery. Apart from Highlanders few redcoat infantry. But if your interest is Waterloo, they do make some items that K&C does not (yet) offer, including Nassau elite company infantry, British heavy and light cavalry of various kinds, and French cheveau-legere lancers, cuirassiers, carabiniers, chasseurs a cheval of the line, grenadiers a cheval of the guard, and hussars. They make a beautiful set of French foot artillery of the line in field dress, with shako covers etc. They also make a wide range of Russian and Austrian Austerlitz figures and French bicorn-type infantry.

 

[jazzeum]

Howelltrh,

I took your post and separated into a few paragraphs. I thought this would make it easier for other posters to read. Nothing else was changed.

 

[Needabiggerhouse]

Miniwelt is all I've decided to own for my Waterloo sets. I have almost every piece of the charging collection, done as 25 different Scots Greys, 6 Irish Dragoons, including the colours and bugler, and two Brit Dragoons - just like the British charge. I also have two artillery pieces and artillerymen to man them and 8 line infantry. They are awesome -the best figures I own. I bought them from a dealer [Figurine Emporium] at Toy Soldier Shows who sells nothing else and sets out diorama of about three hundred pieces. He days they come from Moscow, but I have no way of telling. He is very knowledgeable and willing to work with customers. It took from October to December to get all the different pieces because I had some made up so there would all different figures. Personally, I was surprised when K&C came out with their Scots Greys because they seemed to be almost the same as the Miniwelts I had bought! But there's no comparison - the horses' legs are beautifully to scale and the faces look real. Of course the price is much higher, too!

 

[Chuck Harris]

Miniwelt is all I've decided to own for my Waterloo sets. I have almost every piece of the charging collection, done as 25 different Scots Greys, 6 Irish Dragoons, including the colours and bugler, and two Brit Dragoons - just like the British charge. I also have two artillery pieces and artillerymen to man them and 8 line infantry. They are awesome -the best figures I own. I bought them from a dealer [Figurine Emporium] at Toy Soldier Shows who sells nothing else and sets out diorama of about three hundred pieces. He days they come from Moscow, but I have no way of telling. He is very knowledgeable and willing to work with customers. It took from October to December to get all the different pieces because I had some made up so there would all different figures. Personally, I was surprised when K&C came out with their Scots Greys because they seemed to be almost the same as the Miniwelts I had bought! But there's no comparison - the horses' legs are beautifully to scale and the faces look real. Of course the price is much higher, too!

Welcome aboard this forum. Hope you learn roam around here and enjoy, it's filled with a great group of collectors. Some are bit sicker than others but they behave well most of the time.

I like the handle your using. What part of the world do you hang your hat?

 

[VID_soldiers]

I had the same problem geting on the mini welt site with the eror screen. I thought it was just my computor. I think it might have something to do with my computors security setting But i,m the last guy to talk to about computor technical problems. My computor was down for almost a month. I think that the casting for Mini welt_ tin bay _and figurine emporium are all the same but painted by different painters. I,ve seen the same exact poses at tin bay and figurine E. but the painting is a little different and those two also flog the base of the figures. I have a few of them and yes the size is a perfect fit with K&C but 3 times the price but, they make great gap fillers for the figures that K&C hasn,t made. I,ll try and find a link for you.http://tinbay.com/http://www.figurineemporium.com/

Accidentally I found in this forum this topic. I want inform you that Miniwelt-Tinbay-Figurine Emporium got ordered the figures from our team and they are was our distributors. Now Miniwelt don't work in this business, the owner is left it. I don't know will he work in future or no for the tin soldiers. We manufactured the soldiers for every of this distributors by their wishes, so they sold and sell the same our figures but we made some differences for every distributors like a stands, type of paintings etc. We manufactured it the tin soldiers since 1991 and have in our arsenal about 10000 original figures able for orders. We have a historic consultants, sculptor, modelists, painters and we working for the pre-orders. Our main theme as you can see at our distributors - Napoleonic and some Romes, some new themes like a Russian Imperial Army for 1914. So, nobody from our distributors have full line of our figures.We have some ideas at all time and constantly get new sets. Now we will go to the market like "VID soldiers" also

 

[theBaron]

MiniWelt's figures are also available through Scholtz's Berliner Zinnfiguren, www.zinnfigur.com. The site has an English version, for anyone who doesn't speak German.

I've bought my MiniWelt SYW kits through Berliner Zinnfiguren, with no problems.

From VID_Soldiers post, I imagine that perhaps the figures Herr Scholtz sells may be cast by VID_Soldiers, and Scholtz is one of the distributors, but that would need to be confirmed/clarified. But whatever the case, they're still currently in BZ's catalog.

Prost!
Brad

 

[VID_soldiers]

MiniWelt's figures are also available through Scholtz's Berliner Zinnfiguren, www.zinnfigur.com. The site has an English version, for anyone who doesn't speak German.

I've bought my MiniWelt SYW kits through Berliner Zinnfiguren, with no problems.

From VID_Soldiers post, I imagine that perhaps the figures Herr Scholtz sells may be cast by VID_Soldiers, and Scholtz is one of the distributors, but that would need to be confirmed/clarified. But whatever the case, they're still currently in BZ's catalog.

Prost!
Brad

Actually, we had working with BZ through Miniwelt, not personally, but since the owner Miniwelt left this business we do not manufacture figures for BZ. They sell only rest of the Miniwelt painted figures. Maybe they continue sell the kits of Miniwelt figures, because they produce it in Germany, but this is only kits from Miniwelt catalogue and very small part of the our offered figures. Really, figures for SYW you can buy only in BZ, because all rights for this figures was at Miniwelt and maybe today it have BZ (I don't know). Possible, the SYW figures kits is producing today in Germany too by Miniwelt licence.
In the US-Canada we sell the figures through Tinbay, here you can find our big but not full catalogue for Napoleonic theme and Romans. All another soldiers in Tinbay manufactured via another manufacturers. Figurine Emporium in US (Alex Djakov) sell our figures, that he got from our Russian (Moscow) old distributor.
Also you can find our figures and 2 big online catalogues with from our Italian distributor
http://www.dw-international.it/

 

[theBaron]

Thanks for the clarification about MiniWelt, VID! Alex will be at our show, I'll have to talk to him and see if he can get the kits that I use, might be cheaper than ordering them from Germany.

Prost!
Brad

 

[VID_soldiers]

Thanks for the clarification about MiniWelt, VID! Alex will be at our show, I'll have to talk to him and see if he can get the kits that I use, might be cheaper than ordering them from Germany.

Prost!
Brad

If you mean the kits (non-painted figures) - we do not sell it now. We sell now only painted figures. The full range of the figures you can get directly from us or our Moscow distributor - Vadim Grishunin. If you want I can send to you our full range of figures on CD. This is not add's CD but for our inner use just for info what we made. We make a lot of old and new figures so this catalogue update all the time. And this is not all range.
In this year we have plans and just working for the Kulmbach tin soldiers show, where we want take part. So, you can see our new figures that we want get to Kulmbach here
http://www.treefrogtreasures.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11532