The figures are nice but not the most interesting thing...

These were a reasonably recent eBay purchase. Good original figures nicely painted in a style which matches well with mine. Though I must have at least a hundred foot guards in bearskin by now.

But the really interesting thing was the hand made fitted box they came in. made by the seller's late father, they took me back to when if you wanted something you had to make it yourself - no kickstarters or cottage industry wargames companies. The box is beautifully made out of what I think is artists mounting board, among other things. I have two other purchases from this seller, both with boxes - another Hinton Hunt foot unit and an S range French cavalry box, which is substantially larger.

The fitted boxes reminded me of one of my all time favourite eBay purchases, from a good few years ago, which was a series of Jacklex Colonial artillery and equipment in a purpose made plywood box.

As ever apologies for pictures which are not the best.

My least favourite Hinton Hint figure of all time...

This is my least favourite Hinton Hunt figure of all time.

Or to be more accurate, Hinton Hunt based figure.

I have had about ten of these, black undercoated, for some time; I had seriously thought of throwing them away.

Then a recent eBay purchase of around 30 well painted figures and around 20 part painted or unpainted turned out to be these, which gave me the option with the ones I already had to raise a second battalion.

Essentially the figure is a marching French infantryman which has been given a round hat with plume. Presumably it is intended either to be British Marine or round hat infantry, or Swedes.

I had thought they were unusable but having some nicely painted ones convinced me to paint up the others. They'll do from a distance.

I haven't been able to identify what they are supposed to be from old David Clayton lists.

Hinton Hunt Painting Instructions

After a significant amount of work I have now finished transcribing all the sets of original Hinton Hunt Painting Transactions I have or which people have kindly sent me.

These originals are typically slightly (at least) fuzzy carbon copy type documents. They don't reproduce well when posted so transcribing them seemed to be the best way to preserve them and make them accessible and usable.

Marcus Hinton was not entirely consistent in style or spelling but I have tried to remain as true as possible to the originals, avoiding editing and keeping as close to the original text and layout.

All are for Napoleonic figures.

I have grouped them in seven separate documents:

A - Index - a list of all those included in the transcripts

1 - AN Codes - Austrians (16)
2 - BN Codes - British (24)
3 - FN Codes - French (51)
4 - PN Codes - Prussian (11)
5 - RN Codes - Russian (9)

6 - Smaller Nations - includes Bavaria (1), Brunswick (3), Netherlands (1), Hesse-Darmstadt (2), Nassau (1), Portugal (1), Grand Duchy of Warsaw (1), Wurttemberg (1)

These documents are pdfs. I hope there may be some additions in time as people may send me scans or copies of sets I don't yet have.

As there is the potential for these documents to change I am not making them available at the moment for download. Instead, you can send me a comment (which I won't publish), giving your email address and saying which of the seven documents you would like me to send you.

It may be that more recent research has overtaken some of this information but Marcus Hinton was serious about his research and they give the authentic answer to how he expected his figures to be painted in the 1960s and 70s. Having transcribed them all I can confirm I think they will be very helpful for anyone looking to paint these vintage figures (provided, of course, the particular set of instructions you need were available to me and are included in my list0.

As I am doing this because once I had done it for myself I thought I would share the information with others, this is all on a good will basis so I make no guarantees about how quickly I can deal with any requests I receive, but I will do my best to respond quickly.

This information is provided on condition no commercial use is made of it, and on condition you do not copy and send to anyone else. If you know of anyone who would also like them, please direct them here to obtain them from me.

Hinton Hunt Figures WATERLOO

I have just obtained this document dating from 1965 and the 150th anniversary, possibly from the Wargamer's Newsletter's Military Festival at the Duke of York Headquarters in Chelsea on 20th March (see this post on Doug Crowther's admirable Unfashionably Shiny blog).

I have also come into more Hinton Hunt painting instructions. These are not particularly legible as some of them are bad carbon copies, but when I scan them I will photoshop them as best I can.

On a more long term basuis I might consider typing them all up in a word document or series of documents, if there was a demand for this.

Interesting Dutch lancers

I recently acquired these two interesting Dutch lancers on ebay. I couldn't quite work them out from the photograph - obviously some conversion work had been done on them - but when they arrived, all became clear thanks to clear codes on the base - the one on the left is FN 41, the trumpeter, with an added lance, while the other is FN 43 lancer charging, but with a replacement lance.

In some circles it is almost sacrilege to suggest converting Vintage HH figures could be a good thing, but you only need to look at what Peter Gilder achieved with his to realise the potential within these figures, particularly the one piece casting cavalry ones, even just with the addition of pin swords.

Colonel General of Hussars 1804

 I am sitting here looking at a large collection of military postcards which arrived today. There are around 80 sets of Rene North Paint Your Own Cards, unopened in their original envelopes,around ten unopened packets of Charles Stadden and others, along with some loose cards from the Imperial War Museum and other series.

If anyone has an FN 358, General Andoche Junot in his uniform as the Colonel General of Hussars, ready to paint this card may provide an additional reference to the Hinton Hunt painting instructions posted here.

I will add this image to that post as well. Blogger is messing up the format of this post - I apologise for this and will try to fix it later

Prints Militaire

Hinton Hunt issued a series of plates drawn by Gerry Embleton, together with painting instructions. I am not sure whether these were aimed more at their 54mm figure customers than their 20mm ones. Whatever the case, they were attractive and useful painting aids. Thanks to John and to Richard I have had access to a nearly complete set, and have posted them below, as part of my drive to preserve some of the Hinton Hunt ephemera.

The original description and lists of Prints Militaire from the big Hinton Hunt catalogue are reproduced below.

Prints Militaire NA1 Austro-Hungarian Infantry 1809-15

Prints Militaire NA2 Austro-Hungarian Infantry 1809-15

Prints Militaire NB1 British Infantry of the Line, 1812-15, officers and drummer

Prints Militaire NB2 British Infantry of the Line, 1812-15, NCOs and men

Prints Militaire NB4 Royal Horse Artillery, Britain, 1812/15

Prints Militaire NB5 The Black Watch, 42nd Regiment, 1812/15

Prints Militaire NF1 Infantry of the Line, France, 1808-12 (other ranks)

Prints Militaire NF2 French Imperial Guard, Polish Lancers of the Guard 1807-14

Prints Militaire NF3 Chassuers a Cheval de la Garde, France, 1800-15 officers,musicians etc

Prints Militaire NF4 Infantry of the Line, France, 1808-12 officers,musicians etc

Prints Militaire NP1 Prussian Infantry of the Line 1811-15 privates

Prints Militaire NP2 Prussian Infantry of the Line 1811-15 officers, NCO and drummer

Prints Militaire NR1 Russian Infantry of the Line 1812-15