Deserty Update

I am glad to say that with a bit of detective work I have managed to track down this French Foreign Legion and Arab 20mm figure range and have completed an order which includes at least one of each figure. So far all I have done is to glue them to pennies, white undercoat them and basetex the coins. I am confident they will paint up nicely.

The range is owned by Martin Cameron and goes under the name Battlepac. They are not currently listed for sale on the web but you can contact Martin using the contact form on his Pictart Studio web site and the list below.

The listings are as follows:

Foreign Legion

F1 Mounted officer waving & horse
F2 officer standing
F3 officer running with sword
F4 Bugler rifle slung
F5 Marching rifle slung
F6 Marching rifle shouldered classic pose
F7 Standing Firing
F8 Standing loading
F9 Standing at porte
F10 Charging
F11 kneeling firing
F12 Mule company mounted & mule
F13 Mule company dismounted marching

Arabs

F14 Chieftain with standard 
F15 Arab holding aloft sword and jezail
F16 Arab firing jezail from hip
F17 Arab standing guard with jezail
F18 Arab charging with sword pointing
F19 Arab kneeling firing rifle
F20 Arab kneeling firing jezail from hip
F21 Arab kneeling with sword 
F22 Arab open handed mixed weapons on camel
F23 Arab mounted on horse with sword
F24 Arab mounted on horse with rifle 
F25 Arab mounted on horse with rifle


and three later additions


F26 Legionaire kneeling at ready, 
F27 Arab foot standing firing, 
F28 Arab foot advancing

(thanks to Carl for transcribing the list from a less legible pdf scan)

I have photographed them and tried to put them more or less in the order of the list, but with mounted first and foot second. I can't be absolutely sure I have done this 100% correctly.

prices are

55p foot
95p horse and rider
1.10 camel and rider (one piece casting)

All figures are 20mm


FFL

Mounted Officer; Mule Company

Foot figures

Arabs

Camelry and cavalry

Foot figures

More e-bay mystery figures

Greg from Oz sent me these pictures from some recent e-bay lots.

He wrote:

I wonder if your readers might be able to cast a little light on some figures for me.

Some time ago I failed to win a number of eBay auctions.

The figures were as pictured and were reputedly by an Ed Saunders of Taunton. As you can see they are 7YW subjects and not without some charm.

According to the notes in the auctions, the figure bases were cut from tin cans. I presume the figures were soldered to them.

Interestingly, the cavalry look like old Airfix horses and are not dissimilar to the Marchmont Dragoons depicted in “Charge!”.

If anyone has any information, I’m exceedingly curious.


I wrote back (this is counding like That's Life, isn't it):

Hi Greg

Ed Saunders is a name that crops up regularly in early issues of Don Featherstone’s Wargamer’s Newsletter and also occasionally in Jack Scruby’s magazines. I think he is the same as the A W Saunders in the link below.

here (from Mike Taber's table Top Talk)

Interestingly the first article is about figures he made himself, although in a smaller scale. The method he describes for making them could fit very well with these figures. As you say the horses have a definite Airfix look to them – possibly the US Cavalry set. If they are mounted on tin bases the chances are that these have been cast in metal – I can’t imagine the plastic horses with the pegs for the plastic bases cut off and araldited to tin bases would be rigid enough or strong enough to hold metal riders.

I’ll post the pictures and a request for any information on the Vintage Wargaming and Old Metal Detector blogs, and I’ll circulate to a few people who might know more.

True to my word I'm posting the photos and request for information both here and on The Old Metal Detector.

If anyone could shed any light on whether Ed Saunders and A W Saunders are one and the same (I guess I could go through loads of old Wargamer's Newsletters to see if I could work this out but I don't have the time to do it at the moment), or has any further information on these figures, please respond in a comment. Thanks.

An earlier post about Ed Saunders and his commissioning of paintings of his wargames can be found here.

Mystery solved?

Earlier posts on Vintage Wargaming here and here referred to the Lamming Seven Years' War range, about which little information exists other than that they were definitely in production in December 1970 and no longer in production by January 1972.

I have never seen any lists for this range or any photographs of them. Thanks to Paul in Oz these pictures show a possible sighting. The clue is the Easter Island face. Does anyone recognise this figure, or have any further information on this figure or the range?

Minifigs S Range Seven Years War

Over on the Lone S Ranger blog I have posted some information on these figures. There are a number of figures which I have not been able definitely to identify, and there are also a fair number for which I have no pictures. If you know this range quite well, or maybe even have figures from it, I would be grateful if you e a look at the blog and pass on any further identification help you may be able to give.

These posts can be found here.

Mystery Napoleonics take 3

These are Clive N's photos of the figures in his possession.

Mystery Napoleonics take 2

I've dug my mystery horseman out from the loft and here he is - clearly of the same manufacture as the RHG figure in the previous post, again with wire reins and soldered on to a sheet metal base. The photo seems to have blanched out some of the colour of the uniform coat, which is sky blue.

Mystery Napoleonics

I've been sent this picture of two Napoleonic figures and I was wondering if anyone could help identify the manufacturers. The suspicion is that the Royal Horse Guards figure could be very early Greenwood and Ball - can anyone confirm this? or provide an alternative identification? Also struggling on the rocketeer. No visible markings on either figure.

Mystery figures

While rooting around in the loft, I found two mystery cavalry figures, picture here with an S Range British Dragoon for size comparison. I don't think I had any horses to go with these. Can anyone identify the manufacturer?