Paul Watson’s Own (Boer War)

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Seen in Facebook as usual… I am a fan of PW output… more in a few days I guess… inventive, craftsmanship and jolly good results!… Some of those Toy Soldiers are a 100 years old… so a little respect!

It is my absolute limit. Nothing interests me after the second Anglo-Boer War… or 1900 to be precise… even the tragic end of the guerrilla war and the concentration camps I found deeply distressing and not a matter of amusement at all. So be it. This is MY limit.

Blockhaus

Toy Soldiers: Vignettes to end a collection

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You must be tired of my wanderings, but that surely completes the big cabinet.

Now, if only Andrew Stevens admits orders in September I would be sorely tempted in adding three or four figures to the other cabinet…

Nurses and a Medical Officer (STEADFAST)
And the Military Policemen set by STEADFAST
Could not resist adding Lestrade (Plian Clothes Detective STEADFAST)

Mix and Match in 28mm (a long time ago)

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A pic of the peak of my own 25/28mm Collection.

Funny, today I have a bit of time to write… well… the pic is to the point… by then I mixed and matched manufacturers… I did find DIXON horses fantastic coupled with FOUNDRY riders (but not exclusively… TO THE REDOUBT and OLD GLORY too!).

It was the apex of my involvement in wargaming on that scale, I had a moderate surplus of bits and pieces from here and there and I could easily change “heads” at will with my PROXON minidrill and vice… had a lot of horses of discarded projects (that I would use in fancy units as the mounted Regiment of the French Foreign Legion)… and life in the hobby was FUN.

I still used painting services for the rank and file, and only did paint myself “specials” or closer to my heart subjects. You see I had NO time enough to paint because my real life as an Architect used my time… and I have a family too!… so the only way was to organize, list, buy, get the parcels, customize, send the biggest part to the painters with full instructions… and paint a little myself.

I enjoyed those years of my hobby to the full because time was so scarce. I am older now… over seventy (bot my grandfather and father were dead at my age)… no longer can I have fantasies about long term projects… I’ve done that, been there, got the T-Shirt as they say… but surely enough those new technologies help me pass the time and share my experiences with other people with similar interests.

The Michigan Brigade of Volunteers is a pet subject (as the ACW is) and Custer was better served in the Civil War than in his “Indian times”… the famous 7th had NOT the same stamina as the wolverines… understandable too of course… I own more than a hundred volumes on the Little Big Horn and after reading them… you can have a moderate sympathy with Custer as a man doing his job… but the so called “Indian Wars” were frustrating from a military point of view.

That Custer is better known for his death in a NO WIN situation that for his campaigning in the ACW is one of those ironies in History.

Wow!… time to write without interruptions for a change!… count the present one as an extra Post. Hope you enjoy too.

“Sixties” BRITAINS: That box started it all

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Britain’s extra large set (two trays) Coldstream Guards… fantastic gift from my parents!
detail

On a trip to London (UK) my parents had the great idea of bringing to me this awesome set of BRITAINS… one of the last produced before going “plastic”!

I was really pampered because I had been sick for quite a time.

Now, that brought along a lot of reminiscences… just seen in an Auction in the USA… not that I am going to bid at all… I had the real thing at the time it was needed…

I already had a lot of plastic, rubber and aluminium toy soldiers… but that box suddenly become the apex of my loot!

Sorry for the poor quality of the pics but they were really small.

As a result you all know I was hooked on Toy Soldiers for life…