Toy Soldier Collecting in the 90s and the Noughties
Several influences increased my collection from the 1990s to the present.
One of these was discovering that I could buy mountains of toy soldiers by post, including from overseas. Stads in the USA was one of my big sources of figures. I bought my Marx gun limbers from him and also many bulk lots of figures that were fun as real grab bags of figures.
The other obvious source was other Australian collectors and dealers. Every ACOTS convention I would return home with an extra case of toy soldiers and there have been well over twenty conventions now.
The other huge source was the discovery of Ebay in the twenty first century. I was never very interested in using computers until I discovered that I could extend my hobby onto the Net.
At the same time the content of my new acquisitions has varied from time to time. My discovery of ACOTS had greatly increased my ACW armies. ACOTS member Steve Wardle, with his magnificent Medieval armies influenced me to increase my Medieval armies. Discovering plenty of hollowcasts at conventions and on the Internet have led me to bolster my collection of traditional rosy cheeked soldiers. My acquisition of toy soldier moulds has led to the ranks being increased by home castings.
As a teacher I learned from my students about Games Workshop figures. It started with a lunchtime wargame club where for forty to fifty minutes my 54mm cowboys would fight each other, Indians, and, somewhat eccentrically, knights. There were also games with Arabs versus French Foreign legion, aliens versus spacemen and so on. Some students brought in their Space Marines and I thought I'd get 'a few' of my own. Well, actually, I changed to Space Orks as they were wonderfully crazy, zany and irreverent. So now I have a huge army of these 28mm scale figures as well. As mentioned elsewhere, my current project is Dark Eldar. They have a very sleek and beautiful, vampirish look to them. For a supposedly fragile race they have done enormous damage to Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Tyranids and even other Dark Eldar.
In the past few years I have discovered Little Wars and Funny Little Wars Yahoo Groups. I have been very impressed by Padre Paul Wright's Funny Little Wars rule book and look forward to the sequel, Funny Little Campaigns. Just like H G Wells Little Wars of 1913 and Frank Perry's First and Second Books of Wargaming in the 1970s the heroic little figures are 54mm.
Funny Little Wars has led me to create new armies of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The army lists provided in Funny Little Wars are based on a point system and therefore have something in common with the Games Workshop idea of points based armies. What is different is that matchstick firing guns are used for artillery fire and then a radius made around where the matchstick lands. The effect is similar to using scatter dice except that there is a greater margin for unexpected casualties. Of course you do not have to use shooting guns but it adds to the fun.
My traditional metal figures have now joined forces with my plastic toy soldiers to form Armies Black, Dark Green, Red, Blue and Light Green. Armies Ruritania, Gerolstein, Purple, Red, White and Blue are also in their infant stages.
The plastic sources of figures have included hundreds of ACW figures left over form my Herculean task of building ACW armies and the ever increasing range of Armies in Plastic.
Patrick's The Virtual Armchair general has been a new source of figures, flags and paper buildings and vehicles. The Funny Little Wars flags look so great that I sometimes get them first and then make the armies to go with them!
To house my growing collections I have acquired numerous kitchen and other cheap glass cabinets from garage sales. A 1920s curved glass display Case has pride of place next to the telephone. It houses my hollow cast civilians, plastic Napoleonic and plastic Britains Swoppet cowboys and Indians so I can look at them as I type these blogs..
One of these was discovering that I could buy mountains of toy soldiers by post, including from overseas. Stads in the USA was one of my big sources of figures. I bought my Marx gun limbers from him and also many bulk lots of figures that were fun as real grab bags of figures.
The other obvious source was other Australian collectors and dealers. Every ACOTS convention I would return home with an extra case of toy soldiers and there have been well over twenty conventions now.
The other huge source was the discovery of Ebay in the twenty first century. I was never very interested in using computers until I discovered that I could extend my hobby onto the Net.
At the same time the content of my new acquisitions has varied from time to time. My discovery of ACOTS had greatly increased my ACW armies. ACOTS member Steve Wardle, with his magnificent Medieval armies influenced me to increase my Medieval armies. Discovering plenty of hollowcasts at conventions and on the Internet have led me to bolster my collection of traditional rosy cheeked soldiers. My acquisition of toy soldier moulds has led to the ranks being increased by home castings.
As a teacher I learned from my students about Games Workshop figures. It started with a lunchtime wargame club where for forty to fifty minutes my 54mm cowboys would fight each other, Indians, and, somewhat eccentrically, knights. There were also games with Arabs versus French Foreign legion, aliens versus spacemen and so on. Some students brought in their Space Marines and I thought I'd get 'a few' of my own. Well, actually, I changed to Space Orks as they were wonderfully crazy, zany and irreverent. So now I have a huge army of these 28mm scale figures as well. As mentioned elsewhere, my current project is Dark Eldar. They have a very sleek and beautiful, vampirish look to them. For a supposedly fragile race they have done enormous damage to Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Tyranids and even other Dark Eldar.
In the past few years I have discovered Little Wars and Funny Little Wars Yahoo Groups. I have been very impressed by Padre Paul Wright's Funny Little Wars rule book and look forward to the sequel, Funny Little Campaigns. Just like H G Wells Little Wars of 1913 and Frank Perry's First and Second Books of Wargaming in the 1970s the heroic little figures are 54mm.
Funny Little Wars has led me to create new armies of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. The army lists provided in Funny Little Wars are based on a point system and therefore have something in common with the Games Workshop idea of points based armies. What is different is that matchstick firing guns are used for artillery fire and then a radius made around where the matchstick lands. The effect is similar to using scatter dice except that there is a greater margin for unexpected casualties. Of course you do not have to use shooting guns but it adds to the fun.
My traditional metal figures have now joined forces with my plastic toy soldiers to form Armies Black, Dark Green, Red, Blue and Light Green. Armies Ruritania, Gerolstein, Purple, Red, White and Blue are also in their infant stages.
The plastic sources of figures have included hundreds of ACW figures left over form my Herculean task of building ACW armies and the ever increasing range of Armies in Plastic.
Patrick's The Virtual Armchair general has been a new source of figures, flags and paper buildings and vehicles. The Funny Little Wars flags look so great that I sometimes get them first and then make the armies to go with them!
To house my growing collections I have acquired numerous kitchen and other cheap glass cabinets from garage sales. A 1920s curved glass display Case has pride of place next to the telephone. It houses my hollow cast civilians, plastic Napoleonic and plastic Britains Swoppet cowboys and Indians so I can look at them as I type these blogs..
Comments
Post a Comment