SPECIAL THANKS. I would like to thank Paul Watson for his sponsorship of several lead figure collections on this blog. Having decided to clear his spare/surplus figures, he generously forwarded them on with no other requirement than they deserved to be restored. I would also like to mention George S. Mills, who kindly furnished a quantity of plastic figures which allowed me to complete another five or six military units, serving in several collections.

Wednesday 15 September 2021

JUST CLEARING MY SPARES

Last weekend I was able to clear another batch of figures out of my spares box. This has reduced their number to less than 85 toy soldiers still needing restoration and/or paintwork. Its certainly nice to see boxes condensed and more room space! To be honest, my resolve to paint figures has really slowed down now, mainly due to most of my spare time being spent on the garden, or painting skirting boards and ceilings. At least my home is getting a fresh look!

MGB

WW2 BRITISH PARAS. Here is a small unit of Airfix figures painted up. Will want to do some more detail work on their bases at a later date.

THE POLICE. Picked up this rather rough casting of a British policeman c.1900. To be fair, it cleaned up rather well, and I drilled steel pins into the soles to fix to a suitable base. Got it for £5.25 delivered.

As a follow-on to the above. I cleared two spare figures. The first is a plastic and metal police conversion c.1940. The second a a Merseyside mounted policeman with their distinctive lance..... not sure the British police ever used lances?

ROYAL ARTILLERY. Paul Watson kindly sent me three Guardsmen in watch cloaks. No plans to raise a contingent but I did see a potential of joining a figure in my collection and forming a company of RA Gunners on sentry duty. I suspect these will be quite useful.

PARTISAN. Found another Airfix commando figure. Might as well draft him into my partisans.

FRENCH MARIN FUSILIER. This was useful, a spare RN rating converted into a French naval figure. It had very poor castings of the arms so replacing them with something better was on the cards. With this figure complete I now have a three figure firing section, vital.

Finally, not quite 54mm, more like 45mm, my Insurgent army gained a new figure. One of those cheap plastic figures converted.

9 comments:

  1. Like the mounted Police Lancer and the other two constables are interesting - not come across them before .

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    1. Hi Tony, the early constable is new to me too, suspect it might be a home-cast, but I'm happy with the result. The police lancer is just a fun novelty, no plans to recruit a unit. The converted policeman is just using up spares to make something interesting, will attach him to my twelve-strong Dad's army unit, looks right with them.
      Michael

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  2. All wonderful paint jobs and conversions Michael! I especially like the partisan, French sailor, and insurgent! They will be very useful indeed, in your future battles!

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    1. Cheers Brad, it was fun working on a wide range of figures from the spares box, and I also think they will add more than their number to possible scenarios.
      Michael

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  3. If you need more Paras, these have been reissued this summer by Airfix alongside 54mm German and American paras and American, German and British infantry https://uk.airfix.com/shop/figures

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    1. Good old shiny toy soldiers there and interesting policemen.

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    2. Hi Mark, thanks for the comments. I enjoyed painting up the paras. I suspect, rather than increasing my collection, I'll try and muster opposing forces from various contingents. So my British WW2 will comprise two elite para firing sections, four home guard, some military police, civilian police, and perhaps some naval sections. All facing a German landing force.
      Michael

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  4. Interesting and varied post Michael. Your Airfix Paras reminded me that I played Arnhem games with these in the mid 1970s, not long after "The Bridge Too Far" movie came out. Good fun but difficult to stage with more than a handful in this scale - I now do Stalingrad in 10mm, much more manageable. Cheers Chris

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    1. Hi Chris, to be honest, for me the 54mm move is having fun with toy soldiers, some of which I remember from my childhood. I don't really have any plans to refight historical actions in this scale. But I have really enjoyed the change in scale, quite invigorating! All my previous collections being 28mm. I've also had to keep much of my 28mm range/movement measurements because of table space.
      Michael

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