Toy Soldiers: A Dying Hobby? (5 Viewers)

King & Country

King & Country

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May 23, 2005
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Hi Guys,

Somewhere on the Forum my friend Gideon seemed to suggest that ultimately toy soldiers/military miniatures would die out as not enough young people are coming into the hobby. I beg to differ...

From my point of view I do see younger people “getting into it” and generally interested if only they are exposed to it.

One of the big problems today in this world of “political correctness” is the subject of History is being lamentably taught (or not at all) in most schools in Britain and the U.S. I am absolutely “gob-smacked” by the ignorance (by no means all their own fault) of many young people. The main-stream media can also be held to account for the lack of intelligent, well-made historical films and documentaries. Great movies and TV series “Saving Pvt. Ryan”...“Band of Brothers”...“Flags of Our Fathers” are the exceptions rather than rule.

Take a look at an exceptional TV series like “ROME” which, alas, has only been allowed to run for just 2 seasons!!!

K&C and I’m sure other companies like Britains...Conte...Forces of Valor...21st Century are “reaching out” and “reaching” young people.

At this very moment we’re looking into a “schools programme” where we can go and talk and display toy soldiers/military miniatures and relate them to real, actual events. We’ve done this very successfully several times in San Antonio and the response has been most encouraging.

Simultaneously, we are still looking at mediums like television to find a way to reach a far wider audience (say History Channel) but at a price we can actually afford.

It was interesting that yesterday I was in all-day discussions with Mike, Sue and Bob Neville from K&C UK on their last year’s performance and their predictions for the coming twelve months. Their growth rate, year on year has been phenomenal and their outlook is very positive. They were stating that an important part of their growth has been the younger collectors coming into the hobby. My experience with our own retail stores in Hong Kong and San Antonio would tend to confirm this.

Is there still a mountain to move in bringing in these youngsters...? You bet there is but I honestly believe we can do it.

As a friend of mine used to say, “Aim for the moon...if you hit a haystack at least you got off the ground!”

Best wishes and...happy collecting!

Andy C.
 
Andy,

I will have to check and see if I can still access the information. If so I will share it with you.

Last year, I was able to use the search engines to do analytics on click patterns revolving around the main two engines - Overture and Google.

Google is Google - it is also AOL, Ask Jeeves, AltaVista and a few others. Overture is Yahoo and several others as well.

The numbers of unique IP addresses looking up toy soldiers as opposed to other key words had dropped to pretty low levels. One of the toy soldier producers was down to several hundred searches per month on Google. Google is the most used search engine out there so this number was unbelievable to me.

I look around at the toy soldier shows. If you get a few hundred at a show - it's a good show. When I was a kid, a toy soldier show would be packed, lke hard to walk down the rows. There were at least two in New Jersey that were multi day events. This deosn't seem to be the case these days.

While much of the hobby is shifting to the web, for every one hobby shop that opens three to four shut down. These local neighborhood shops are critical to the toy soldier hobby unless you can consistently get your products into the major chains. Once you are in a major chain or FAO you will be beaten down price wise and be very lucky if your products are re-ordered. I have seen companies get terribly hurt by KB and FAO. Still, it doesn't make up for the local hobby shops.

When I was managing the shop in the mid/late 1990's, kids would come in and be totally fascinated with the soldiers - especially the ones they could afford. I left the business for a few years to join a large company as a sales rep. I came back to the store and quickly saw that kids were no longer looking at those figures.

It seems to me that the toy soldier hobby has shifted from a hobby shared by adults and children to mostly a middle-aged hobby with precious few young people backfilling the adults who move on.

It frustrates me to no end to see this. I truly love this hobby - I grew up on the dealer end of the tables and we got in early. Imagine being a ten year old boy in the 19080's and being able to play with your favorite figures - the Selwyn Smith Timpos. It was great, but I understood.

There will always be a toy soldier/miniatures hobby - don't get me wrong. I think that your work has revived the hobby in several ways by introducing the figures you have over the years. But this is by means a safe and secure hobby -at all.

The numbers and statistics speak for them selves. This forum has been active for 2 + years and has just over 500 members, many of them also happen to be members of the other forums. Diecast Exchange (miniature vehicles) has 2,900 members, the DAC (Diecast Aircraft Forum) has over 5,000 members. These forums have been around for a few years to.

I look at the numbers, I look at what kids are doing, I look at the search engine stats, I watch my traffic in real-time. When someone clicks onto my website I can see exactly where they came from and how they found me. If you were to click my link at the bottom of this post - I will see that. I use this craft my advertising campaigns.

This is an important conversation to have, you know? There are some who agree with me and some who don't. I can't help seeing what I see and whenever I share my views and concerns I get poked at for it. What's kind of interesting is that you actually support what I've been saying in your post but your take is so different.

If possible, I will try to get those click volume reports I was looking at last year and email them to you. I think you'll find it interesting and it might actually give insight for some opportunities.

And yes, it is shockig what our kids are not learning about. When I was in elementary school, our principal reached out concentration camp survivors and to veterans who saw combat and he convinced them to come in and speak with us about their experiences. Our country is a very different place now.

All the best and feel free to contact me any time,

Gideon
 
Most of the current crop of collectors are Marx kids. Marx playsets are what we got for Christmas/ birthdays in the USA. Britains did much the same for the UK crowd. In order to grow future generations of collectors some one needs to fill this bill and mass market. Marx recast sets now sell for around two hundred dollars, the price of a playstation 2, which would most kids choose? I would love to be able to get a 20 to 40 dollar playsets for my son every Christmas of a decent quality plastic like the old Marx sets. Something that promotes imagination and convince Dad to get his butt in the floor and duke it out. A couple of years ago I bought a set of plastic toy soldier that were way to small so I gave them to the seven year old. Being a safety minded Dad I bought him cork guns to wage war with ( instead of BB guns). At a family BBQ I noticed the seven year old was sulking in his chair. When I went to see the reason for this, his 21, 17,and 19 year old cousins and a girlfriend had taken over his guns and army men and were taking turns waging war. A generation we missed had discovered toy soldiers. Right now FOV is trying to reclaim the Marx legacy by getting their products into Wal Mart and Target this is where the next generation of collectors are. For this I salute them and will be purchasing their stuff for him and me to play with.
Come out and play.:)
Gary
 
Hi Guys,

This is a good topic. I have often wondered how come the old plastic play sets went away and when they returned to the scene they were priced way too high. Being 200 bucks a pop the kids certainly wont buy them, heck I am resistant to buy them at that price and we dont own a video game station either.

I think that the small bags of soldiers that were readily available for a about 2 bucks when I was a kid were the way to go and that the manufacturers today need to look long and hard at filling the gap and getting them into places like wally world and they will see the future collectors being formed and grown again. Thats where it started for me and the logical progression went on to Deetail soldiers from Santa and me saving as much of my allowance as I could after blowing a bunch on baseball cards for one of our trips to see my uncle down in NYC and the side trip to FAO where I could get loose Deetail WWII soldiers by the bag full and my army would be ready to do battle again. This eventually evolved into metal soldiers that now fill the shelves in my den. The prices will have to be reasonable and then the kids will want to spend their allowance or that 5 bucks from granny on their birthday. It sort seems to me that it needs to be the old addage crawl (mass produced plastic no frills), walk (Deetail or FOV) then run (Metal like Britains, Frontline and King & Country).

I hope that more of the major makers will get into this and make the sets needed to fill the gaps and bring the kids back into the fold.

All the best

Dave
 
I collected and played as a kid, but when I got into my later teens the toy soldiers got put away, this lasted through my 20's. As I got older, got married a couple of times and cut way back on my bar hopping days, the interest picked up again. When I was in my 20's they were the last thing on my mind.

I think if someone has the interest when they were young there's a better then average chance it will come back again as they age. maybe the names of the companies will change, 20 years from now the Conte's, TSSD andClassic Toy Soldiers may be the collectibles, replacing the Marx sets we had. Times may change and the objects of our affection may change, but I think the hobby will always be there.
 
Previous conversations about a 'dying hobby' centered around the assumption that most collectors were rapidly aging and would not be around in a few years to collect.

As this forum attests, that is not the case. Many, many of you are 'fairly' young with kids still at home. You have many years of collecting ahead of you. The new collectors we are finding tend to be younger as well. The untapped pool of people who could be collectors is huge - many people don't even know our little niche exists - and when they find it they go nuts! Am I not telling the story of many of you here?

What will happen when today's 'little kids' grow up to be collector age? That's looking VERY long term - at least 20 years from now. And 20 years from now all of you 30 and 40 year olds will be 50 and 60 year olds - still in the collector mindset! While I agree that we should do something to help the youngest kids get into the hobby (I'm about to order some 6 inch green Marx army men that I remember from my childhood to take out in the backyard with my son this summer!), I'm not hitting any panic buttons yet.

I wonder about the decline in brick and mortar shops. K&C sure has a lot of new dealers that I don't recognize as 'traditional' players. I also think that with improved technology the toy soldiers can be better seen and appreciated on-line as well (we're hoping our 360 images help with that).

Who can predict the future? Not me - but I have a sense it'll be pretty good!

Pete
 
I personally feel that the Toy Soldier industry will grow and continue to expand with better products (as King & Country has shown) and the growth of the production industry with additional fine products from the likes of NMA and John Jenkins - to name a few.

One issue is the lack of Brick and Motor Stores as Peter spoke about. There you have a special place for people to go and see first hand the "ART" of Toy Soldiers. Hopefully, more people will take the business risk and dive in to expand the markets out there. Treefrog and others have corner the internet market - what we need is a raw expansion.

Just my thoughts.

Ron
 
A good idea might be to rent window space from a mall or store and have an awesome display and have the contact info on the side if someone is interested.
 
The internet is here to stay. Barnes and Noble have had to go online to counter Amazon. It is easier for me to order a textbook from Amazon than my local academic bookshop. Toy soldiers will survive, I am not so sure about the bricks and mortar type shops. The youngsters will still be interetsed aren't there some cool WWII palystation games.
This isn't global warming chaps. The sky is not falling
Regards
Damian Clarke
 
I hope it's not a dying Hobby, I just got back in after 30 some odd years of this crazy life, God forbid.Mike:)
 
The internet will eventually close most brick & mortar stores. I run a thriving site selling only one sixth scale WWII action figures and loose gear. Probably 50% of my business is overseas. If not for the internet I would not be in business. A brick and mortar store would never fly specializing in the items I carry. I only know of two hobby stores in NJ that even carry toy soldiers. One only carries Britain's and a few Conte pieces. He charges about 10% over suggested retail for most items in his store. The other in Cherry Hill is to far from my house he opens like three days a week. Again if not for the internet I wouldn't even be collecting King & Country. I'd love to have a King X or Spirit of 76 Collectables close to me. From a business owners prospective, why open a store with all of the overhead, when you can open a web store with virtually no overhead except for your product line. Plus your business is open 24 hours a day all year, anyplace they're is a computer. Beside you can go to work in your underwear.

Yes I don't think that schools are spending enough time on history. I even have a few friends who are teachers and they don't really know that much about anything past 1960's. I think that younger collectors are teaching themselves about these subjects on the internet. I know I have lots of younger collectors buying action figures. Many of them also have dabbled in toy soldiers and other military miniatures. Plus I believe boards like this are definitely helping get people interested.
 
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Interesting topic- one that was echoed on another forum I am on- about a classic American Hero- GI Joe. If Hasbro has had to face the fire in prior years then this is a trend that not only affects toy soldiers, but really military collectibles and toys in general. The 12" Joes took a beating in the late 60's, early 70's because of our involvement in Vietnam. So, Hasbro remarkets GI Joe as an "Action man" or "Action force" and looses the military bearing of the figure. On come the 80's and with the Star Wars craze, Hasbro needs to jump into the 4" figure market and revamps GI Joe as an international terrorism fighting force. Since 1998, the 4" Joes have taken a hit but we Joe fans are confident they will return.

Here are some of my thougts and I have been thinking on this all day :D

1.) We as collectors need to take the initiative in showing kids or even other adults. If it weren't for the brick and mortar store I went to 8 years ago, I wouldn't be back in the game. The owner of the store could tell I was obvious military and spent like 2-3 hours bringing me up to speed.

I have taken my figures to Cub Scout meetings and me and the Scouts discussed what the figures were about and what the time periods were. I have also put on displays at my local library- this is something I did on my own initiative- sort of a recruiting drive if you will. We know what we have- let's try to spark interest in the other guys out there. I have even taken them to clients and the office and let people look and talk. Heck, I even took one of my 101st guys to the bar one night and met some 'Nam vets and we talked and drank till the wee hours.:D

Also- let's not be afraid to discuss our collections with disadvantaged or minority children. Our nations military history is rich in tradition of African Americans and Asian Americans who fought a "2 front" war. These kids that are in the city need to hear the stories of the Nisei, the Buffalo Soldiers, the Tuskegee Airman and realize that the military can offer those kids a way out of their impoverished situation. I think a lot of us would be OVERWHELMED at the turnout and insightful questions you get from these kids- you may be the one spark of light in an otherwise grim day.

2.) As collectors most of us are fathers or grandfathers- buy your kids a nice figure each year for christmas- worst case- the kid hates in and sells it on Ebay in 15 years or so when they are in college. I have tried to talk my buddies into doing this for their kids but unfortunately it is those video games that everyone wants- it's a "Give 'em what they want now" mentality.

Want to really picque the kids interest- get him a "personality" figure. Why did Patton have those pearly pistols? Why did Mac have that ugly pipe? Suddenly they start picking up books or reading on the internet and finding a new world.

3.) Potential ideas for KC or any other toy soldier maker-

-Offer a minors only discount- might be impractical to enforce- after all- why wouldn't we just send our kids to do our bidding?

-Offer an online scholarship centered around history- The toy soldier company could setup outlines and be the judges of papers that were written by kids that were going to college.

- Post an easy online video game centered around trivia or certain themes of history- maybe create a "Kids" page or kids forum on your corporate websites. Offer prizes to kids who score the high score or something.

- Donate- most of these schools would be interested in accepting donations of toy soldiers- perhaps this is a possibility for "scrap" or imperfect figures (if such a thing exists :)

- Have an international "Toy Soldier" day- Marvel and DC Comics have been doing this for years as a way to promote sales and get people to go and visit their brick and mortar comic stores. Perhaps it could center around a national holiday like July 4th weekend. Imagine going in to your local hobby, toy soldier or even Toys R Us and getting a free plastic continental soldier.

- Animals- kids love animals. My 6 year old daughter was looking at the Napoleonic Russian Cavalry fight that was posted last weekend along with my Normandy Village dio- my OWN daughter said her favorite- between Dad's and the online stranger- was the one "With the horses all over the place"- broke my heart but it is what it is. Toy soldiers for kids can be marketed without weapons or even aggresive poses- say a continental dispatch rider, stuff like that.

As far as history in school goes- well, I think we are all showing our age a bit. I am 34 and can remember a lot of WW2 and WW1 vets. I am sure you gentlemen that are my senior by 10-15 years can remember them being even more plentiful. I don't think it has to do with political correctness- I think it is more of a generational gap that exists- we are loosing vets at an alarming rate- the WW2's, Korean and Nam guys. We have another batch of brave men and women out there now- don't hesitate to show them the same adoration you showed the other guys- they deserve it too. Let them talk to your kids about their experiences. Several of my buddies sent all sorts of stuff to my kids during their stints- money from Saddam, genie lamps, heck one guy even gave my son an M8 Bayonet:eek: ( I am keeping that in a safe place). Our kids get beat up all the time with hearing about how they don't know math and science, they don't need to get beat up on history too. We as parents need to take some initiative and take them to history themed events and let them judge for themselves and hear the vets talk. When my son and daughter met Wild Bill Guarnere and they saw him walking around on that peg leg of his, they were taken aback and suddenly saw face to face that freedom isn't free- not by a long shot!!

And last but not least- get on the floor and setup invasions with them!! Make them generals, put them in charge and let them come up with battle plans.

On the GI joe forum, the consesus to make the GI Joe line more competitive- Hasbro needs to make a blockbuster movie and video game like Battlefront or whatever they are. I was mortified- has it really gotten to the point now that we need to put out multi million dollar movies and $45 video games in order to spurn our kids interest???? Depressing if it is true.

Well, I guess this is long enough.

STANDS ALONE!!
CC
 
Chris,

Thanks for your insightful suggestions! When I was growing up, I once brought part of my collection to the local library and set up a nice display in the children's wing. I got tons of great comments, met other local collectors (one older gentleman in my town had 8,000+ Mignot!!!), and I had the satisfaction of knowing that my figures were being appreciated by others. Efforts like this might go a long way to introducing our hobby to a younger generation.

On a related note, the power of gift giving is profound! I have lots of figures in my collection that don't really interest me any more, or just don't fit in, and I have often made gifts of single figures to people young and old who have expressed an interest. For me, this is really just returning a favor because countless older collectors shared a piece of their collection with me when I was a young collector (including one from Malcolm Forbes!!). I think this might be a great way to get people into the hobby. When I was looking at graduate schools, I met one professor at a prostigious university in Pennselvania who kept a closet full of Britains figures to give to his graduate students as they progressed through the various stages of professional training. Though not every one of his students became ardent collectors, I would imagine he sparked an interest in a few. Toy soldiers make great gifts to celibrate any achievement, and we all know that it is the thought that counts:)

yours in the hobby,

Cole
 
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