Over the decades our family has accumulated a huge collection of plastic Napoleonic figures. They have been painted.organised and reorganised and repainted many times. The result of all this is that they have been dispersed and set aside as new projects took hold, or they were replaced by metal castings.
As a result of a mistaken purchase, I have decided to centralise all of the figures, repair and repaint where necessary and to use standard basing. The mistake occurred when I was looking for some plastic French cavalry to go with my Les Higgins collection, until such time as I could find some metal originals. I put in a bid for some French Hussars and a few Riflemen that were going cheap on eBay. I forgot about the bid until just before the auction closed and I thought, as I was the only bidder, I should take a look in more detail. To my horror I could see why there were few bids, it was collection only. Luck was on my side, however, as the location of the lot was about 5 miles down the road, phew!
I then looked at the description and realised that it was not just some cavalry and infantry, but a complete collection of over 1,500 figures. My bid of around £20 looked too low but I remained the only bidder and won the collection, which is now sitting in my garage. I am guessing that most other people failed to fully read the description and were put off by the 'collection only' condition.
To cut a long story short I now have an additional massive collection of painted plastic figures and it made sense to merge these with our existing holdings. As most were sitting dormant in attics and cupboards, the rest of the family were glad to shed their figures, no doubt grateful for the additional storage space.
So, there we are. This little adventure has seen me painting and basing hundreds of figures and I thought I would share some pictires as I complete them. First off figures from our original collection, repainted and baed. Starting with some British:
Some Airfix Highlanders:
Wow! As we say in this part of the country: What a result! Seeing those painted Airfix Napoleonics certainly takes me back - my first painted army was an Anglo Dutch/German force for 1815. No Revell rifles then so I converted the British Line infantry standing and kneeling firing into the 95th.
ReplyDeleteLovely collection Bob - looking forward to seeing in take shape!
All the best,
DC
Thanks David, for all of their faults the little Airfix men do look quite good after a splash of paint. This is a very nostalgic exercise for me as some of these figures were part of late brother's collection and others painted way back in the 80s and 90s.
DeleteLovely Airfix nostalgia - These figures look very nice Bob, especially the Highlanders. I always liked the Hussars but had a deep dislike for the stupid pegs on the horse's hooves which never wanted to line up with the appropriate holes in the bases!
ReplyDeleteThanks MJT. The Airfix horses are a pain, but you may be able to see that I have pinned the horses to the bases and this makes for a sturdy join. It stops the paint on the legs flaking too.
DeleteI hadn't until you pointed it out! Nice idea.
DeleteA real blast from the past, I had hordes of them in my youth and loved them to bits, great to see such a lovely collection and what a cracking result for you.
ReplyDeleteThanks Donnie. I must admit to thoroughly enjoying digging out these old figures. Many had been long forgotten and in most cases the paintwork was in reasonable condition.
DeleteYou can easily fill in the blanks with Newline metals that are very nice.
ReplyDeleteThey are indeed. I have invested in some command figures which are sadly lacking in some of the plastic figure sets.
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