Britains Toy Soldiers

Friday,January 26, 2018
Sunny with Cloudy Periods
-8 C  19.2 F

Britains Toy Soldiers

Please click here to visit this renowned specialist in toy soldiers

Please click here to Wikipedia to read about Britains

I wrote to Old Toy Soldiers Auctions USA because that is their specialty at auctions. Not only that, but they had very good photos. However, the  final reason is that they took their model soldiers out of the box to photograph them! Most of the time, the soldiers from most auctioneers remain in their box. They're held together by a cord, so it is a lot of work to remove the soldiers, photograph them, and then place them back in order in the box.

For today's post, this auctioneer was privileged to have the collection of Mr. Arnold Rolak, a very renowned collector of Britains model soldiers. I also selected the toy soldiers from day 2 of the auction. Mr. Rolak's collection was exceptional, and many people, authors, and companies would ask for permission to photograph his exceptional collection.

In their own words

Day 2 is the heart of the Rolak Collection. Mr. Rolak was known for exceptional condition and great rarities, especially from the Britains 1883 catalog. The day starts with some near mint examples of Pre War Britains, climaxing with a beautiful Royal Marine Light Infantry Band, then transitions into the early toys highlighted by the Britains Blondin Cyclist. A very nice selection of Civilian and Comic figures are then offered, along with some Heyde highlights.

Britains Set # 1622 Royal Marine Light Infantry Band

Exceptionally rare and  desirable, this is considered to be

the ultimate Britains band! Pre-War. Unboxed

Britains Set Q# 39 Royal Horse Military

1st version. Rear seated gunners.

Circa 1896.

Provenance: Bill Miele Collection, Dmitru Ilyinsky Collection.

The finest known example in protective archival box.

13 pieces/

Britains Set # 1439 Mammoth Circus Roundabout

With original box. The rarest and most desirable of all Britains civilians.

Circa 1936

Britains Rare Set # 1521 British Biplane & Hanger

Rarest production  aircraft after the "flying boat".

Comes with the rare box art.

Britains Set A# 10 Salvation Army Men

Unboxed (no box) Extremely rare set.

The best known example known.

Circa 1906

8 pieces

Britain's Royal Marine Colour Party

Types of the British Navy. Extremely rare specialist  paint set 

made exclusively for Hamsley's Department Store.

Circa 1938.

In original  Types of the British Army box with tie card,

including letter of Provenance from the James Opie Collection. 

The finest known example.

Britains Set A#6 Royal Scots Greys

Extremely rare large scale Germanic  version.

Circa 1893

6 pieces (no box).

This exact set is pictured on the cover of The Great Book of Britains by James Opie.

Mr. Opie was the specialist at, I believe Sotheby's. He's a world-renowned specialist

on the subject of toy soldiers.

Britains Blondin Cyclist

Extremely rare.

Early Britains toy with mechanism to make 

the cyclist move in a circle. Unboxed

Britains Miniature London Road Loader

Original Box and smoke stack.

Circa 1885

2 pieces

Can you Identify These Toy Soldiers?

Monday, July 10, 2017
Cloudy with Sun
23C  74 F

Can You Identify 

These Toy Soldiers?

   I always like to receive e-mail from readers. The main reason is that I know people are reading my blog. The second reason is that it keeps me busy, in being able to write an interesting new post.

I  received an e-mail 2 weeks ago, and today, I received photos for toy soldiers that I do not know about. Mr. William Hones sent me these nice photos of his toy soldiers and asked me if I knew who made them. I'm not very knowledgeable about toy soldiers, but I do know that lots of people collect and enjoy them. There are British and AMerican-made toy soldiers, although you can in fact find toy soldiers made all over the world.  So if someone knows who manufactured these soldiers, would you please send me an e-mail, and I'll inform William as to their manufacturer's identity.

So that's it for today, and I do hope that someone out there will be 

able to identify these wonderful toy soldiers.

Thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

Toy Soldiers

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. 

Please click on this sentence to redirect to their fine ebay store

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