Why are model soldiers so expensive nowdays? (1 Viewer)

[The Colonel]

When I started collecting model soldiers as a child, infantry ranged from £3:50p to £5:50p, and cavalry ranged from about £7:00 to £11:00. Now they cost huge amounts of money, £30 or more for one tin soldier. At my last birthday I asked for model soldiers to increase my existing collection and got-one single model soldier, as it cost £35. Obviously inflation has gone up since the 1990s when I started collecting, but even so, I don't think inflation just by itself is to blame.

 

[DMNamiot]

I guess it depends on what you collect. Some brands are always pricey and others less so. There is also the secondary market where you can find deals but you risk damage in transit which means additional costs for repairs. So what are you collecting? I collect a wide range of makers both new and old like Britain’s and Marlborough and Beau Geste and a few King and Country as well. What are you collecting?

Dave

 

[The Colonel]

Mostly Britain's, although I have a few Del Prado as well, which I use as artillery crew and royal bodyguards.

 

[theBaron]

When I started collecting model soldiers as a child, infantry ranged from £3:50p to £5:50p, and cavalry ranged from about £7:00 to £11:00. Now they cost huge amounts of money, £30 or more for one tin soldier. At my last birthday I asked for model soldiers to increase my existing collection and got-one single model soldier, as it cost £35. Obviously inflation has gone up since the 1990s when I started collecting, but even so, I don't think inflation just by itself is to blame.

Well, how long ago were you a child? I'm 55, so when I was a child, hollow-cast toy soldiers were just being phased out. I remember seeing some at Christmas in the toy department of a local department store, but Deetail toy soldiers, and plastic toy soldiers, had replaced metal ones, generally.

Compared to what a hollow-cast Britains toy soldier cost in 1967, sure, today's figures seem outrageously expensive. But notice my language-it reflects the changes that have taken place.

Classic toy soldiers were sold as toys. In the intervening time, they are no longer toys, they are collector's items. They are not marketed to a broad group of customers, to be played with, but to a specialty market, far more limited in number, and for display.

Add to that the costs of producing the figure, from sculpting the master, to making the mold, to casting the figures, and their prices become more understandable.

As Chris noted, you can find bargains on the second-hand market. You could also try your hand at painting your own, which some of us do. It can be very satisfying. Myself, I collect, but also paint and cast, 54mm figures depicting the Seven Years War, and the Kaiser's Army. So I buy old Staddens, Rose (Russel Gammage), Imrie-Risley, Phoenix, Sanderson, and other kit figures. And prices can be very reasonable. For those kits, I usually pay $10 or less for foot figures, and $15 to $20 for mounted figures.

New figure kits can be pricey, too, but again, taking into account the work that goes into producing such a kit, the prices are not all that unreasonable.

Prost!
Brad

 

[DMNamiot]

Brad sums up some of what I was thinking as well. I had some lead hollow casts as a kid but they were quickly phased out by plastic shoppers and then detail solid figures. Also a great point about them being for collectors these days and not for kids. My boys have a bunch of plastic toy soldiers but they aren’t as into them as I think I was as a kid, still they do play with them.

Dave

 

[King & Country]

Mostly Britain's, although I have a few Del Prado as well, which I use as artillery crew and royal bodyguards.

There are many reasons why all-metal, hand- painted toy soldiers have gone up in price but among the two brands you collect these perhaps are some of the main reasons;

1. Del Prado soldiers were produced in the millions to go along with weekly magazines as ‘part-works’ i.e. ‘Foot Soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars’ for instance. That series alone ran to 120 different figures and was produced for more than 2 years.

3x different factories in China were involved and the average manufacturing cost of each figure, because of the huge volumes produced, were a fraction of what we have to pay today.

Also...China, between !990 and around 2009/10 was a relatively inexpensive place to manufacture anything and everything ... including toy soldiers!

About that time 2009/10 the Chinese Government introduced a raft of new Labour Laws that brought in higher wages, better working conditions and other conditions that rapidly increased the manufacturing costs. Add on higher Raw Materials and more expensive Transportation and Customs Duties and you begin to get a better picture of the real situation.

Del Prado themselves also had their own problems...Their early success brought forth a bevy of imitators and competitors and the market became saturated and began to dramatically decline...

That, of course, is just one part of a very big story concerning one kind of the particular little toy soldiers you like to collect...I’ll leave the rest to another day...

Best wishes and happy collecting,

Andy C. Neilson
Co founder & Creative Director, King & Country.
[Chief Designer for Del Prado 2000-2007]