My Equal Opportunity Collection

 No, I am not going to go on some politically correct tangent.

What materials do you like your toy soldiers made from?

My childhood, in the 1960s, was at a time when plastic had taken over metal for children's toys. My toy soldiers were nearly all plastic but there was still a hierarchy. At bottom were the ubiquitous made in Hong Kong plastic copies of made in England plastic figures. There were also Australian made Toltoys figures and cereal figures. next there were the painted made in England plastics and the swoppet figures in multiple colored plastic parts. These latter were often lined up in toy shop cabinets. My go-to was the Toltoys shop at Chadstone Melbourne. I'd sit or kneel in front of that cabinet and metaphorically salivate. Then, every few weeks, I'd produce my ten or thirty cents from my meagre pocket money and buy one or two figures. The Timpo ones were cheaper than the Britains. There were also the lovely Herald figures.

  Due to their cheapness (free in the case of cereal figures) cereal, Toltoys and HK figures made up the bulk of my Western and WW2 armies. Then came the made in England figures.

  Also, in my armies were a handful of much loved Britains hollow-cast 'ceremonial' British troops, gifted to me by older cousins.

  Much of my and other people's collecting is inspired by nostalgia for our childhood collections. I kept most of my childhood collection and added greatly to it as an adult. Most additions were plastic and a few solid more recently made metals. I also picked up many old hollow-casts. More recently I have bought quite a few Expeditionary Force and ElastoWit plastic figures. My criteria for obtaining figures includes them just looking good, unusual and useful in my wargame armies.

  My collection includes just about everything. I pick up cheapo made in China stuff if I like the look of it. I also have a very large collection of Armies in Plastic, Accurate, Hat and A Call to Arms, figures that took off in the 1980s and catered to adult collectors as well as children. These are figures I painted for wargame regiments. I also collected quite a few hollow-cast, repairing and repainting them. In addition, I have quite a few home-castings.

  The 1970s saw the introduction of the Britains Detail range. These toy soldiers prove that the line between 'model' and 'toy' is an unclear one because they can be repainted to look very realistic. DSG has also picked up their mantle by producing their own range.

  Push comes to shove if I was to pick favorites I'd consider figures I remember especially fondly. Another consideration is the physical endurance of the figures. Detail Britains ones are made of a plastic which endures much better than other old plastics, and even than more recent plastic figures. Hollow-cast metal figures have survived for much longer than the plastics and will still be around after many years after those others have crumbled. They do get breakages but hey can be easily repaired. Lead rot is the main enemy although it is very rare, to non-existent, in my collection.