Tuesday, November 5, 2011
Toy Soldiers
I was thinking about writing a post about toy soldiers on Canada's Remembrance Day for November 11. Coincidentally, a recent new seller that I had just written about asked me to take a look at his new postings of toy soldiers. Mike Bendler is the owner of SellitBaltimore in Maryland, USA. I took a look, and decided to move up the post since the toys are currently on ebay up for auction. If you've read my blog before, you'll know that one of the ways that I select people or companies if how well they photography their items up for action. As well, I prefer lots of photographs in order to best present an item. Mike or his employees take lots of photos. I like this,especially for small items,as there is lots of detail to be seen, that we wouldn't see without taking photos of an item that has been rotated to present different views.
I don't have any old catalogues of toy soldiers, and it would take a long time to find the corresponding information, so the descriptions are solely from SellitBaltimore, and their very brief. I'm sure, in time, that Mike will purchase books to add to his business. Even though many toy soldiers are in fact made of lead,they are quite valuable, so as a seller, one would want to knoiw what rarities might be coming up for purchase.
Here's an example of Mike's close-up of one of his soldiers. Normally,I would have colour-corrected the image and removed the warmer colours. This was probably due to the camera setting being set for daylight, but the photo was taken under incandescent (light bulb) lighting.
Here's a screen capture of a Photoshop filter used to colour-balance the lighting of the photo.
Here is a side-by side view.
I decided to stay with Bob's warm-toned photos. They have a better "feeling" to them, especially had I posted this for Remembrance Day.
Without the description, some potential buyers may not bid. I think that this particular item is a soldier modelled after a WWI or later American soldier. I'm basing this "educated guess" on the helmet, and the strap that is running diagonally across the soldier's chest. However, I have seem such helmet's in WWII movies of American soldier's in the early WWII year, especially in the Philippines. As you can see, accurate information is important!
Once again, the lack of an accurate descriptive narrative may dilute the number of bidders from such an item. Of course, other knowledgeable bidders may see this as a positive, if they know how common or rare this item is.
Since there is grey foam in the box, I would think (another educated guess), that this is a more recent manufacture, compared to the cardboard with holes below.
What I find most interesting about the world of toy soldiers is that there are so many vintage, old, or antique items, especially from Great Britain. I'm sure that the British manufacturer, Britain's, had made these fine soldiers from every campaign that the British Military has ever undergone.
What I also find interesting, is that although soldiers or riders may look the same, each one is slightly different. You have to remember that most of these toys were hand-painted. Imagine that you are a painter in one of the factories that made these toys. The soldiers or riders are moving along quite fast, or perhaps them come carefully placed in a box of 200. You have to work fast to finish the lot, as the bext lot will be coming soon. If you enlarge these photos in Google's Blogger, you will see several interesting things. Not all the painting is the same for identical soldiers or riders, and there are overpainting to such areas as straps, and sometimes, there are more or less strokes to 2 identical soldiers.
It's always in the detail!
Thanks for dropping by,
and a great part foo the day or night,
wherever you may be.
Stacey
write to me anytime at:
toysearcher@gmail.com0
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