I spent far too much time (and sometimes money) happily looking through the cheap job lots of plastic and lead toy soldiers on EBay. Looking at toy soldiers makes me happy. Discovering new and interesting ones also makes me happy.
It’s not a very useful social skill but childhood years of intense looking at Airfix figures and many others has helped me build up a rough working knowledge of many different makes of plastic soldiers makers, much in the same way birders and twitchers can pick out the “jizz” of different and often similar looking birds by their shape and movements.
So among the flock of ordinary everyday ‘birds’ you might spot the odd rarity or some new or unusual figures.
Spotted on an Air Ambulance EBay shop, I saw a useful tin of the usual dull coloured green and tan army soldiers but mixed in were a few colourful flashes. Based on aglimpses in the photos, I took a punt or gamble on bidding, as nobody had yet bid on this job lot tin.
In return for what is effectively a small donation of under a tenner to the Air Ambulance that might fund a few vital seconds of lifesaving flight, a tin arrived by post a few days later.
A good deal – I get all the interest of my hobby, whilst a worthwhile charity gets a small donation without me having to climb mountains, run marathons or walk the Great Wall of China. Happy result!
I couldn’t wait to open it and see if what I had glimpsed was worth the money. I shall share the joy with you now, share my virtual jumble sale rummage joy.
The first odd ones I spotted amongst the green and tan army figures were these peculiar pirates with very oddly moulded pistols.
A host of useful bicorne era figures emerged, mostly around 45mm. I often spot figures like these on US EBay, Etsy or Amazon but they are not usually available in the UK. Regional plastic ‘tat’ envy.
These seventeen American War of Independence era figures are in patriotic red white and blue (Union Jack or Stars And Stripes?), roughly 42 to 45mm.
I had not seen these tricorne figures before, they alone were worth the price of the whole tin. Maybe one of my blog readers recognises the make?
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These are worth painting up for some French-Indian Wars and ‘Close Wars’ type skirmishes in the forest against similar smallish 42mm pound store plastic Indians or natives. I use the ‘Close Wars’ two page rules in the appendix to Donald Featherstone’s War Games (1962, recently reprinted). https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/close-little-wars-featherstones-simplest-rules/
Christmas bought me some 54mm BMC plastic figures from the same bicorne / tricorne period from a UK online supplier Drum and Flag who happened to have a few bags in stock.
Again worth the money are these 19 Matchbox US Infantry 54mm copies and a useful Jeep. Modern copies of these figures are still around at about 30 for £6 to £7.
Overall a happy rummage through this tin. I hope you enjoyed it too!
Posted by Mark Man of TIN on Pound Store Plastic Warriors, 8 February 2019.
Pound Store Plastic Warriors 
Of the tricorne figures the officer and kneeling firing look like copies of Accurate. The others look a little like Marx but with modifications.
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Thanks for the information, James. I will look these makers / range up.
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It looks like those pirates have laser pistols to me. Some space pirate enemies for space marines maybe?
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They are very strange pistols and with a suitably generic paint scheme should prove suitable opposition for both pirates and space marines for the 42mm figures, being of that curious pound / dollar store “China Made” in between size. Working on some 40mm ish versions of the 32mm blue space marine figures from the Poundland small figures.
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I thought I recognised the Tricorne Figures, they are copies of the ‘Accurate’ America War of Independence British Infantry (really nice figures, by the way) see link to the Plastic Soldier review
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=1
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Thanks Ian, That’s definitely the figures so they have scaled up OOHO figures to 40mm-ish copies. As you say nice figures, although I still have a soft spot for the classic Airfix AWI figures. My first bicorne tricorne era figures.
P.S. did you see the announcement about Google + closing soon?
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