The London Show pictures got me to thinking......... (1 Viewer)

[Warrior]

........those pictures were great, that is a great show, it's on my bucket list for sure.

Some of the pictures of the vintage plastics got me to thinking about Christmas as a kid and some of the great toy soldiers I got as presents.


My top five presents were;

5.) My aunt and uncle bought me both the Marx Blue and the Grey set and the Sons of Liberty set, loved those sets.

4.) My other aunt and uncle bought me the Britains Swoppet Confederate Infantry, cavalry and caisson and limber set along with the Union Infantry and two Union cannons with crews.

3.) Yet another aunt bought me the Waterloo assault set in ho/oo scale, I was over the moon about that one.

2.) My mother bought me the Airfix Waterloo farmhouse and one set each of the French infantry, cavalry and artillery and one set each of the British infantry, cavalry and artillery, this was the same year I got the Waterloo assault set and my love for Napoleonics was born.

1.) My number one gift was the year my father took me to downtown Boston for Christmas (back in the day when there was no internet, Woolworths, Filenes, Grants and other stores carried toy soldiers plus there were half a dozen hobby shops downtown as well). I'll never forget that trip, it was lightly snowing, there was a hussle and bussle in the air and we went from store to store and my Dad really went all out, bought me the Airfix pontoon Bridge assault set, the MPC guns of normandy, breakout from normandy and tank battle at el alamein, plus several Fujimi and Hasegawa model kits and a whole stack of Airfix ho/oo sets, I had a ball with those items during my Christmas break from middle school.

Until they drop me in the ground those memories will always be there............have a Merry Christmas everyone and I hope all of you have great childhood memories of toy soldiers like I do...........

 

[lancer]

........those pictures were great, that is a great show, it's on my bucket list for sure.

Some of the pictures of the vintage plastics got me to thinking about Christmas as a kid and some of the great toy soldiers I got as presents.


My top five presents were;

5.) My aunt and uncle bought me both the Marx Blue and the Grey set and the Sons of Liberty set, loved those sets.

4.) My other aunt and uncle bought me the Britains Swoppet Confederate Infantry, cavalry and caisson and limber set along with the Union Infantry and two Union cannons with crews.

3.) Yet another aunt bought me the Waterloo assault set in ho/oo scale, I was over the moon about that one.

2.) My mother bought me the Airfix Waterloo farmhouse and one set each of the French infantry, cavalry and artillery and one set each of the British infantry, cavalry and artillery, this was the same year I got the Waterloo assault set and my love for Napoleonics was born.

1.) My number one gift was the year my father took me to downtown Boston for Christmas (back in the day when there was no internet, Woolworths, Filenes, Grants and other stores carried toy soldiers plus there were half a dozen hobby shops downtown as well). I'll never forget that trip, it was lightly snowing, there was a hussle and bussle in the air and we went from store to store and my Dad really went all out, bought me the Airfix pontoon Bridge assault set, the MPC guns of normandy, breakout from normandy and tank battle at el alamein, plus several Fujimi and Hasegawa model kits and a whole stack of Airfix ho/oo sets, I had a ball with those items during my Christmas break from middle school.

Until they drop me in the ground those memories will always be there............have a Merry Christmas everyone and I hope all of you have great childhood memories of toy soldiers like I do...........

Great memories, George. As a kid, I also remember the big window displays with the trains, planes, soldiers, villages, etc. They were fantastic and sorely missing from today's Christmas experience. Well do I remember the Marx playsets under the tree and the years spent playing with them. I also received some of those special Britains Swoppets ACW figures. I still have some of the cavalry, but the best part is that the caisson and cannon sets are still in one piece and both the blue and gray ones sit on my shelf still. Like you, the memories will be there till the end and I may take my Swoppet caissons with me.:wink2:^&cool Thanks and Merry Christmas to you and the family. -- Al

 

[Warrior]

Great memories, George. As a kid, I also remember the big window displays with the trains, planes, soldiers, villages, etc. They were fantastic and sorely missing from today's Christmas experience. Well do I remember the Marx playsets under the tree and the years spent playing with them. I also received some of those special Britains Swoppets ACW figures. I still have some of the cavalry, but the best part is that the caisson and cannon sets are still in one piece and both the blue and gray ones sit on my shelf still. Like you, the memories will be there till the end and I may take my Swoppet caissons with me.:wink2:^&cool Thanks and Merry Christmas to you and the family. -- Al

Thanks Al, same to you and yours, I liked those window displays too and the comical thing is I've still got all of the presents I listed, specifically the Britains swoppets.........

 

[Go for Broke]

Wow, you guys got great toys for Christmas. I got green army men and I think mpc or bmc tanks. The first time I saw Marx WWII soldiers was from the paperboy. I traded them with some Civil War stuff. I couldn't believe how beautiful they looked, kind of like when I first bought KCs DD1 & 2.

 

[gk5717]

........those pictures were great, that is a great show, it's on my bucket list for sure.

Some of the pictures of the vintage plastics got me to thinking about Christmas as a kid and some of the great toy soldiers I got as presents.


My top five presents were;

5.) My aunt and uncle bought me both the Marx Blue and the Grey set and the Sons of Liberty set, loved those sets.

4.) My other aunt and uncle bought me the Britains Swoppet Confederate Infantry, cavalry and caisson and limber set along with the Union Infantry and two Union cannons with crews.

3.) Yet another aunt bought me the Waterloo assault set in ho/oo scale, I was over the moon about that one.

2.) My mother bought me the Airfix Waterloo farmhouse and one set each of the French infantry, cavalry and artillery and one set each of the British infantry, cavalry and artillery, this was the same year I got the Waterloo assault set and my love for Napoleonics was born.

1.) My number one gift was the year my father took me to downtown Boston for Christmas (back in the day when there was no internet, Woolworths, Filenes, Grants and other stores carried toy soldiers plus there were half a dozen hobby shops downtown as well). I'll never forget that trip, it was lightly snowing, there was a hussle and bussle in the air and we went from store to store and my Dad really went all out, bought me the Airfix pontoon Bridge assault set, the MPC guns of normandy, breakout from normandy and tank battle at el alamein, plus several Fujimi and Hasegawa model kits and a whole stack of Airfix ho/oo sets, I had a ball with those items during my Christmas break from middle school.

Until they drop me in the ground those memories will always be there............have a Merry Christmas everyone and I hope all of you have great childhood memories of toy soldiers like I do...........

George that was last Christmas, tell me about Christmas when you were a kid.
Gary

 

[Warrior]

George that was last Christmas, tell me about Christmas when you were a kid.
Gary

LOL.............ok, got to give it to you, that was good...............

 

[PanzerAce1944]

I remember one year for Christmas back around 1968 I got all of the original G.I. Joe's to include the German,Russian, Japanese,Aussie, and French Commando. Also the original U.S. Marine in dress uniform and a German Motorcycle with side car also made by Hasbro. ! if I only still had them all today ...... {sm2}

 

[Warrior]

I remember one year for Christmas back around 1968 I got all of the original G.I. Joe's to include the German,Russian, Japanese,Aussie, and French Commando. Also the original U.S. Marine in dress uniform and a German Motorcycle with side car also made by Hasbro. ! if I only still had them all today ...... {sm2}

That's outstanding, comical too as I had all of those figures as well as the German motorcycle, still do actually.......well I sold the Japanese figure for 500.00, also had the talking marine and army figure, sold those for 750.00 each.........talk about a good investment if we had only known.

 

[Louis Badolato]

George that was last Christmas, tell me about Christmas when you were a kid.
Gary

Very funny, Gary!

Great story George. My best memories of toy soldiers at Christmas revolve around the Guns of Naverone Playset and Corgi and Dinky military vehicles.

 

[Warrior]

Very funny, Gary!

Great story George. My best memories of toy soldiers at Christmas revolve around the Guns of Naverone Playset and Corgi and Dinky military vehicles.

It's funny for us Christmas as kids revolved around toys and toy soldiers, while with kids today, it's Ipads, Ipods, Peapods, don't know how parents today can afford Christmas.........

 

[tdubel]

Very funny, Gary!

Great story George. My best memories of toy soldiers at Christmas revolve around the Guns of Naverone Playset and Corgi and Dinky military vehicles.

Louis, you and I are close in era!

1979 age 6 receive Marx Battleground Playset. Super cool, still have it!
1980 age 7 received the granddaddy of them all.........Guns of Navarone - still have it.
1981 age 8 wanted Anzio, got a ton of Star Wars instead over next several years!!!!!!! Very cool, kept it all and boxes, sold it in 1995 right round relase of new SW and got a really unbelievable return on the collection.

1982 and beyond - Britains Deetail, and Metal Models as well as my love for Reeves Toy Soldiers (matte finish).

Great memories.

TD

 

[nysoldiers]

My childhood memories include:
Marx playsets Prince Valiant and Vikings, Johnny Tremaine ARW, The Alamo and Blue and Gray ACW.
Britains swoppets War of the Roses, ACW and ARW.
Timpo Knights, Waterloo, Foreign Legion and Arabs, Cossacks and WWII.
I started painting IR figures when I was about 11 or 12.

 

[Warrior]

My childhood memories include:
Marx playsets Prince Valiant and Vikings, Johnny Tremaine ARW, The Alamo and Blue and Gray ACW.
Britains swoppets War of the Roses, ACW and ARW.
Timpo Knights, Waterloo, Foreign Legion and Arabs, Cossacks and WWII.
I started painting IR figures when I was about 11 or 12.

Britains Swoppets War of the Roses; those were terrific figures, those and the ECW mounted figures. Loved those Timpo Romans and Crusaders. The very first toy soldier catalog I ever got was the IR catalog, they really made great figures back in the day.................

 

[gk5717]

Let me respond with an explanation, George, these are my childhood memories from the 50's and 60's.
Remember my first Marx Ft. Dearborn set, my dad even wrote to the Marx company asking if we could buy additional figures.
Also looking at the Sears Catalog and counting the days until I got Davy Crocketts Alamo.
Any body remember going to the dime store where they had bins of toy soldiers for 10 cents a piece?
My childhood was getting Marx playsets for Christmas and collecting baseball cards in the summer.
And what no kids do now, playing pick up baseball games, played all day!
But on the negative side, no air conditioning in the summer!
Gary

 

[Louis Badolato]

Louis, you and I are close in era!

1979 age 6 receive Marx Battleground Playset. Super cool, still have it!
1980 age 7 received the granddaddy of them all.........Guns of Navarone - still have it.
1981 age 8 wanted Anzio, got a ton of Star Wars instead over next several years!!!!!!! Very cool, kept it all and boxes, sold it in 1995 right round relase of new SW and got a really unbelievable return on the collection.

1982 and beyond - Britains Deetail, and Metal Models as well as my love for Reeves Toy Soldiers (matte finish).

Great memories.

TD

Tom,

I wish I still had my Guns of Navarone playset.

I still have the Corgi vehicles (my son and daughter play with them now) and my Dinky Vehicles (when my son turns 7 I'll start letting him play with these).

I loved building 1:48 scale Bandai Pinpoint Precision models when I was a kid, but sadly none of the ones I built survived my teenage years, due to my interest in fireworks (I had tons of fun blowing them to smithereens with M80's, cherry bombs, or even simple packs of firecrackers). I was able to find pretty much all of them on eBay over the past few years, and I have a whole closet full of them to build with my son (also starting when he turns 7 - up till then we will do snap together models to get him started).

 

[lancer]

Let me respond with an explanation, George, these are my childhood memories from the 50's and 60's.
Remember my first Marx Ft. Dearborn set, my dad even wrote to the Marx company asking if we could buy additional figures.
Also looking at the Sears Catalog and counting the days until I got Davy Crocketts Alamo.
Any body remember going to the dime store where they had bins of toy soldiers for 10 cents a piece?
My childhood was getting Marx playsets for Christmas and collecting baseball cards in the summer.
And what no kids do now, playing pick up baseball games, played all day!
But on the negative side, no air conditioning in the summer!
Gary

Gary, that all sounds real familiar. As kids, the Sears catalog was something to be drooled over time and again. Our gang used to go to the local High's store (a sort of 7/11) with our quarter and purchase a pint of lemonade, some baseball cards or a comic, and then go organize long baseball games amongst ourselves or with other neighborhood gangs. Summers were a blast. When we weren't hitting balls, we were down in the dirt conducting combat operations with our Marx soldiers or Mattel Thompson's, ala Sgt. Saunders. Great times. -- Al

 

[theBaron]

For me, it was model kits. Each year, for a couple of years in the late 70s and up till 1982, I got one of the large aircraft models by Monogram, the B-17G and B-24J, the C-47, and the B-29. I usually spent the rest of Christmas vacation building them.

Except for Christmas 1980, I had to have my wisdom teeth out, and my mother scheduled the surgery over Christmas break, so I wouldn't miss school (she wouldn't let me skip school for the Phillies' World Series victory parade either. Well, OK, that one I could see, but she wouldn't let me go on our church's trip to see the Pope when he came to Philly, either--couldn't miss school).

Prost!
Brad

 

[45thdiv]

My story is pretty close, though I am a twin so split what you got in half since my parents purchased for both of us. I remember that for some reason my brother got the Blue and the Grey set and I got a train??? I liberated the soldiers from him to attack or defend the train. It was the old Marx train set.

Had most of the Best of the West sets from Marx and the Sgt Stoney and Silver knight. I still have some of the Space sets for G.I. Joe like the Mercury capsule.

I was big into model planes in the mid 70's, but they too took damage from fireworks.

I missed out on the Sears Swappets Dodge City playset by one year. I had saved up for it and when I went to buy it, they were out and never restocked. Looking at the show pictures really brought back my wanting to buy them. I'm sure I would have left the London show with some of them.

Like you George, I have the London show on my bucket list, and I have Chicago too.

Oh, who had the cast iron green cannon that you loaded the powder into the back and it shot out flame? I found my old one the other day looking through some boxes from our move. Doesn't work any more, but brings back nice memories.

My twin thinks what I collect is interesting, but he would rather ride skate boards. It's just odd to see him out there with the younger kids riding half pipes. Talk about a 180 from the hobbies we had as kids.

Matthew

 

[theBaron]

My story is pretty close, though I am a twin so split what you got in half since my parents purchased for both of us. I remember that for some reason my brother got the Blue and the Grey set and I got a train??? I liberated the soldiers from him to attack or defend the train. It was the old Marx train set.

Had most of the Best of the West sets from Marx and the Sgt Stoney and Silver knight. I still have some of the Space sets for G.I. Joe like the Mercury capsule.

I was big into model planes in the mid 70's, but they too took damage from fireworks.

I missed out on the Sears Swappets Dodge City playset by one year. I had saved up for it and when I went to buy it, they were out and never restocked. Looking at the show pictures really brought back my wanting to buy them. I'm sure I would have left the London show with some of them.

Like you George, I have the London show on my bucket list, and I have Chicago too.

Oh, who had the cast iron green cannon that you loaded the powder into the back and it shot out flame? I found my old one the other day looking through some boxes from our move. Doesn't work any more, but brings back nice memories.
My twin thinks what I collect is interesting, but he would rather ride skate boards. It's just odd to see him out there with the younger kids riding half pipes. Talk about a 180 from the hobbies we had as kids.

Matthew

That, my friend, is the Big Bang Cannon, made by the Conestoga Company right here in Allentown. The material was a mildly explosive powder created by a professor at Lehigh U. and marketed as "Bangsite". The toys are still made, some in a brass version. The catalog used to include a ship, too, if I remember correctly. Here is a page with more info:

http://www.bigbangcannons.com/blastfromthepast.aspx

My brother and I also had GI Joes--the big ones, not the lame ones from the 80s, and Best of the West. I want to dig those figures out and do some conversions, I'm thinking the bearded ones would make good Imperial German cuirassiers, with the BotW horses.

Prost!
Brad

 

[lancer]

My story is pretty close, though I am a twin so split what you got in half since my parents purchased for both of us. I remember that for some reason my brother got the Blue and the Grey set and I got a train??? I liberated the soldiers from him to attack or defend the train. It was the old Marx train set.

Had most of the Best of the West sets from Marx and the Sgt Stoney and Silver knight. I still have some of the Space sets for G.I. Joe like the Mercury capsule.

I was big into model planes in the mid 70's, but they too took damage from fireworks.

I missed out on the Sears Swappets Dodge City playset by one year. I had saved up for it and when I went to buy it, they were out and never restocked. Looking at the show pictures really brought back my wanting to buy them. I'm sure I would have left the London show with some of them.

Like you George, I have the London show on my bucket list, and I have Chicago too.

Oh, who had the cast iron green cannon that you loaded the powder into the back and it shot out flame? I found my old one the other day looking through some boxes from our move. Doesn't work any more, but brings back nice memories.

My twin thinks what I collect is interesting, but he would rather ride skate boards. It's just odd to see him out there with the younger kids riding half pipes. Talk about a 180 from the hobbies we had as kids.

Matthew

That's deja vu, Matthew. I also had Stoney (still do) at the time everyone else had the large GI Joes. While the Joes had articulated knees, Stoney doesn't, which neccesitated really deep foxholes when digging in! -- Al