1:72 figures – Pound Store Plastic Warriors

Window shopping through the toy soldiers section of Etsy as you do, I spotted a couple of items that reminded me of an unusual hoard find that I hadn’t shared on this or my blogs so far.

Firstly some funky Fifties or Sixties toy soldier fabric on Etsy

then a more recent late 90s Wade’s whimsy of a toy soldier ceramic figure in yellow and blue. A touch of 60s Sergeant Pepper and his Lonely Hearts Club Band?

I’m not buying, I hope they find the right homes. A mere photo reminder is enough for me.

However these two odd Etsy items reminded me of a colourful “dragon’s hoard” of vintage plastic in a ziplock bag turned up for a couple of pounds about five to ten years ago in a local collectibles shop at the seaside.

It is the sort of shop that had (or has) odd opening hours, most often shut when I visited, one that has been an erratic supply of lead and plastic figures for over twenty years. I hope each time I go that it is still there and that it is sometimes open. I hope it has survived Lockdown.

I have been taking stock of my old childhood Airfix figures recently and the odd small hoard or haul of others’ old Airfix that has come my way from time to time.

This mixed bag for a few pounds had a range of vintage Airfix that sold it to me straight away, maybe not for immediate use, but worth buying because you never know with erratic Airfix (ancient or modern) when you will see the like again.

Airfix Washington’s Army

and the Airfix AWI British Infantry both issued in 1971 in time for the bicentenary. They were scarce enough figures during my 70s childhood and remain unissued for years from the 1980s onwards. Oddly they never had an Airfix Playset of their own but Bellona produced a preformed Bunker Hill vacformed base if you could find one.

Some of my own childhood painted surviving Airfix AWI British Grenadiers S40

Coupled with some on these tricorne figures on the sprue in a recent gift from a railway modeller work colleague of a 60s / 70s tin of unwanted Airfix, I should have enough for some future Lace Punk / Lace Wars / Gulliver’s Travels style ImagiNation skirmishes.

http://mcristobylacew-abdul666.blogspot.com

Unpacking these random figures, they were mostly roughly painted and simply card based in units but unflocked.

Clearly they were a cast off part of a gamer’s collection, as they had handwritten Regiment labels on them. Whether they represent real regiments or ImagiNations ones, I find it hard to tell.

January 2021: I have now flocked and individually card based each soldier in each unit but not yet properly repainted them.

I wanted to photograph them as they were, when first seen as a ragtag of units.

I intend keeping the unit colours, just reprinting missing paint and adding flesh tones to faces and hands.

1. Shocking Pink Coated Tricorne Troops

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I quite like the random brightness of unusual colour, perfect for ImagiNations. I’m not sure if they are intended to be real uniforms. Tricorne and Napoleonics are not really my area.

They obviously meant something to somebody once.

Figures painted by someone else are what Bob Cordery of Wargaming Miscellany blog calls OBEs – politely this means Other Beggars’ Efforts.

As mentioned I intend to keep the colourful unit paint schemes, just tidy the paint work up and finish individual rebasing as you see I have done here.

2. Purple Coated Tricorne Troops

These purple clad troops were a random mix of Airfix and other makers. I identified these on the ever useful Plastic Soldier Review website as Accurate / Imex / Revell American War of Independence British Redcoats

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=186

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