CTS Confederate 4-Horse Limber, and Napoleon 12 Pdr

Last Friday we posted Classic Toy Soldiers awesome 6-horse artillery rig with limber, and 24 pdr howitzer. Today we've got the shortened version with fewer horses, only the limber and a Napoleon 12 pounder. The nice thing about CTS's rig is you can order it with four or six horses, with or without caisson, blue or gray riders, and your choice of three different artillery pieces. The horses and figures are repos of the venerable Marx figures but all the other pieces are new product. The four horse rig measures 14 1/2" (36.8cm) L so doesn't take nearly as much play area real estate were you to set up an artillery section or battery. Enjoy!

Magic (Hingfat) #7524 Blue and Gray Soldiers Pt 1

Okay, this whole mess started when I ventured into The Cave and started rummaging through the piles of Civil War toys. They were scattered about in different boxes so the first order of business was trying to figure out just what I had. I pulled all the stuff that was in header bags or carded and this past weekend started the task of sorting and photographing them. For no particular reason the photo sessions began with set #7524 Blue and Gray Soldiers by Magic which I believe is a cover name for the Chinese company Hingfat. Due to the amount of photos I took, this set will be covered in two, maybe three installments.

Years ago I was really heavy into buying playset stuff and had seen these sets hanging in the toy section of a Rite-Aid drugstore and bought a bunch. I believe at the time they were only $1.999 or so, so no big investment there. I had four of these sets left, having already given away probably the rest to some neighborhood kids. What I discovered upon opening and examining them was that each set had a different piece count or included different poses. The header card says 26 pieces but sometimes there were 29 with a few extra figures thrown in. The Union and Confederate's each have eight poses and the poses are different for each army. We'll get to the poses in Part 2. These are NOT 54mm / 1/32 scale with the average soldier measuring only 2" (5.1cm) tall. They also appear to be direct copies of Americana figures, pantographed down to the smaller size.

Today let's look at the bag, limber/caisson, and cannon.

The header art appears to be a direct copy of that seen on Americana Souvenirs and Gifts sets

A complete set consists of:

2 Limbers/caissons

2 Cannon

10 Union Soldiers

10 Confederate Soldiers 

2 Horses

The cannons, though simplified, appear to me to be a 6 Pounder, or...?

The limber poles were all warped as shown in the two photos below

I filled a measuring cup with water, got it to boiling in the microwave then held the pole down into the hot water for about 20 seconds, pulling it out and, using a paper towel, pressing the pole down on a flat surface for about a minute.

The limber and cannon together measures 9" (22.9cm) long

That odd semi-circular form in front is called the pole yoke I believe. On a real limber, the pole would be made of wood and the pole yoke would be iron. Obviously this is a very simplified toy. The ammunition chest, which doubles as a seat, is removable.

Our next post will cover the Union troops.

Enjoy! The Berg's :)