G is for Gonfalonieri

Standard Bearers! Shot these at one of the London shows last year, I think they were King & Country, very nice but hideously expensive poured-metal!

Italian standard-bearers of the age of the Landsknechts, a German-Swiss word, while Gonfalonier is Italian, I think! Factory-painted whitemetal in the 'Big 54mm' - a silly phrase for 60mm figures! Love the novelty on the end, I don't know the history behind him, but I assume some memento of one of the old Russel Square toy soldier shows?

U is for Unknown Medieval Knights, Men at Arms and the odd Camp-follower

Moving along from the Ancients, we arrive at the medieval period with another bunch of unknowns, any help gratefully received.

A couple of Normans; painted and based, but not a brilliant shot given that the hoses may need to be separately ID'd, people did tend to swap them around! The lance could have done with a clipping I think, it's about14 scale-feet long, or about 25 of the rider's feet!

I think these are all the same maker, if fact I'm so sure I haven't numbered them separately, except the horse-parts and rider who lacking the same exact bases, could be from another source?

Five odds; the horse may be from the same maker as figures in the image 2, while the next two (Crusaders?) look a bit Garrison? But are marked only lightly, and not in the italic font the rest of my Garrison's are? [I think - they're all in storage!]

This chap, from all four sides ('cos I have four!) may also be from the same maker as the previous ' image 2' lot?

Again one or two of these have similar codes, but others are definitely from different makes. The ECW 31s is a smaller figure and the pirates (if that's what they are) look monkish!

The more European-looking chap at 5J, may go with the lot at 6H but his base is a tad heavier and his clothing sufficiently different to earn him a separate bag at some point? Indeed 5H has a similar base, but is from a different line/set being less 'Euro-renaissance' and more 'Sealed Knot'!

51 looks a bit Stadden-like in pose and execution of sculpting, but is unmarked?

The aforementioned set along the bottom row with a few more odds-and-sods. A nice 15mm mounted knight and an Aztek (?) are te best of the bunch, but I'd like to ID them all eventually?

Home-cast piracies? Interesting though, despite seeing better-days and I know some people did advertise err.... 'derivative' figures in the modelling press back in the day, anyone know if someone put their name to these knock-offs? They seem to have used the US Cavalry version of the horse (without the heavy reins) - for ease of casting?

A lovely Janissary painted-well by my regular painter - Mr. Anonymous! Was it you? He's been stood onto a cut-up Airfix camel's base, but I haven't the heart to de-base him and see if he's marked, so hopefully someone will recognise him? He's also one of the larger figures in this lot; closer to 28mm.

F is for Fighting Fops in Feathered Fedoras

A quick look at my small selection of Britains ECW figures, I only have the foot figures to view here (I think there's a horseless, broken-sword'ed,  lobster-pot'ed rider somewhere in storage?), along with a couple of knock-offs...

The duellists, we've looked at the red one before, he's marked ABC, the yellow one is more of a generic, but probably from the same source, there were a few Hong Kong brands with similar (or no) marks, we looked at them here a while ago (ABC, CM, CMV, HK, &etc.) , and they specialised in copying the better output of Britains, Crescent and Timpo...badly!

Britains varied the paint on these figures and a group together are really quite stunning, I think one of James Opie's books has a lovely en-mass picture of them and it makes you want to morgage the kids to a poppy-farm and buy loads of these!

If the two above are paired as a sword-fight, and the mounted figures make-up another 'pair', the third pair of this 6-pose set is really imbalanced, a musket against a poll-arm...it's just not cricket! Still, it's a rather tatty musketeer, maybe one of the pikes will get through while he's reloading!

The only figure in this set with a moveable arm; the musketeer presaged the German 'Tommy-gunner' in the Deetail range with the way the weapon is lined-up in the hand.

G is for Gold; Spanish Gold!

I first came across these at a Plastic Warrior show in Richmond about 15 years ago, only three poses, but quite a bunch of them, with the base studs removed, and a quick factory paint job I imagine (with the benefit of hindsight) that they had been sourced from an outpainter or factory worker in the Portsmouth/Southhampton area and used as a war gaming unit.

The three to the left and the contents of the bag are that original find along with a few more that have turned up over the years. I have thinned the bag out with the odd swap from time to time.

Having found them and had the odd older collector say things like "I think they're from a game called Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe or something like that", I turned to Board Game Geek and searched endlessly for the game, trying (in no particular order), Treasure, Island, Robinson, Swiss Family, Pirates, Tall Ships, Sailing, Naval, Navy, Armada, Raleigh, Drake, Nelson, Trafalgar, Sea Battle, Buccaneer, Privateer, Caribbean, Smugglers, Conquistadors...and anything else I could think of! No luck, nada, ziltch, not a dickey-bird of a clue...tons of games though; umpteen versions of Buccaneer (which a lot of people thought aught to be it - it has no figures), all sorts of ship related stuff, more versions of Battleships by more companies than you can shake a big stick at, but no game with the pesky figures in it...

By this time I had obtained the various sample saved for posterity by Brian Knight and/or David Pomeroy, and this shot shows them laid out in no particular order,

The top two rows were one sample bag, with all poses in both colours, the next three rows were each a different sample, middle row have been reversed so that you can see the pin-release marks prominent on their backs (click next to the image to get it up in a separate page), these had been dealt with by the time the figures were issued with the game.

The next row had a pose missing and a duplicate, will never know the significance of that! A final all red sample rounds them off. Both the all red sets are two shades of red and they were obviously playing with what shade to use, they went with the lighter shade in the end.

The content of the bag from a game, also from Mr Pomeroy or Brian. A few years ago I carefully unbent the staples, photographed them with my old 35mm camera, and re-bagged them, the two images to the right are the result.

The game when I eventually found it was Spanish Gold by Triang! There should be some little ships and a dice cup as well, but they probably have their own place in the box.

With the heavy bases these go well with the Revell Conquistadors and not badly with the smaller Merten and Preiser HO Renaissance figures - if you sand the bases down. The two shipmates/men-at-arms (bare legs) also make bloody good Scots insurgents! They can also all be used in ECW war games.