Spring is around the corner and so is the Gettysburg Toy Soldier Show. I try to go to the show each year. This has to be the best place for a Toy Soldier show with all the history your’e surrounded by. Besides the show and Battlefield, the town of Gettysburg is a really nice place to visit too. This would be a nice weekend to come and stay at Gettysburg. Take a walk around the town, Steinwehr avenue is a good place to start. Plenty of antiques stores and historical related shops to visit. Destination map of Gettysburg. Some of the shops sell Toy Soldiers too.
One of those shops is the Gettysburg Miniature Soldier Toy Soldier Shop that is owned by John Zawaba. It is a nice place to visit for both plastic and metal figures. One of the last brick and mortar shops around.
Now back to the show. Last year the show was great, you can read more by reading my review here Gettysburg Toy Soldier Show 2017 Review. The show has both plastic toy soldiers, painted metal miniatures, historical items, hand crafted diorama pieces, books and other toys. Besides all the toys, it’s a great place to talk to fellow collectors and dealers.
The show is on Sunday, April 29th, 2018. Show hours are 10am to 3pm. Located at the Eisenhower Hotel & Conference Center, 2634 Emmittsburg Road, Gettysburg, PA 17325 (717) 334-8121. Aspire Grand Ball Room. There is plenty of parking, the hotel is outside the town. Admission is $7.00, Children under 12, Free with an Adult.
The show is promoted again by John Stengel Jr and co-promoted by Carl Hoegermeyer. They do a wonderful job at the show. Maybe we will see some new figures from John this year. You never know what he is bringing.
Here are some pictures of some Vikings and Saxons that are from Conte & Publius that I started painting last year. I am close to finishing a few, but most need more painting. I need to touch most of them up and then do a wash. After that I will use a matte finish to seal them. Thanks for looking.
Last week Ken Ciak of LOD Enterprises Toy Soldiers shared with us some pictures of the prototypes of the new American Revolution Infantry sets. This is a joint venture with Barzso Playsets. There are 4 new sets that will be released later this year. The sets include British Regulars, British Light Infantry, American Regulars and American Light Infantry. Each set will include 8 different poses. The figures will be the same scale as the earlier sets of Colonial Militia and British Grenadiers that were done by Barzso and now produced by LOD.
Click on the pictures above to get a closer look at the pictures. Below are some pictures of the prototypes and figures from the older British Grenadiers & American Colonial Militia sets.
The color of the British Regulars set will be the same as the British Grenadier set. The color of the American Regulars set will be the same as the Colonial Militia set.
The color of the light infantry sets for both sides will be a slightly lighter shade of red and blue.
The action poses of the British Regulars are really nice.
The British Light Infantry set is a nice surprise. The action poses are really good too.
With some customizing we can have some Queen’s Rangers.
The American Regulars looks really good too. Looks like they are ready to assault the redoubts at Yorktown.
Lastly the American Light Infantry is filled with action too.
These sets will be make a fine addition to the earlier Revolutionary sets. There should be a Yorktown playset later this year. And so far by the looks of it, it should be epic. When you combine the new sets with the older sets you will start will over 45 different poses to go with the future Barzso/LOD Yorktown playset. And for those of us that can customize figures, we have a lot to work with to create new poses.
On a different note, Hat is still having the crowdfunding for SYW Austrians and they would make great Hessian Musketeers for the British Army.
Here is a preview of some of the Expeditionary Force War of 1812 American Militia. Some of these figures could also be used as Alamo defenders or American militia units from the American Revolution and the French & Indian War. These should be available later this year. I will get a set of these to use with the Barzso/LOD Revolutionary sets coming out later this year. I will be doing a post on those other sets later this weekend.
It looks like the Paragon Plains Indian set will be available before the Chicago Toy Soldier Show. They just announced that this set might be available in May at the Texas Toy Soldier show. I hope they mix well with the TSSD Plain Indians. Check out their page for more pictures and other products from Paragon Scenics & Miniatures.
A few days ago I was reading about Hat Toy Soldiers at the Hobby Bunker forum. They have a few polls about figures in 1/32 scale. They are now trying to produce few sets of Seven Years War Austrians by having a crowdfunding. These sets deserve to be made. I hope they get enough support to make this happen.
A few years ago I purchased about 10 boxes of the Seven Years War Prussians. The Prussians are really nice and are very hard to find these days. I have been using these guys as Hessian troops to go with my Barzso American Revolution figures.
Here are some digitized samples of the Seven Year War Austrians below.
Set A – Fusiliers
Set B – Grenadiers
Set C – Command
The sets look really nice. I have been waiting a long time to add some more Soldiers that could be used as British or French Soldiers for the French & Indian War. You can build a nice army with few boxes of these guys. So head over to the crowdfunding page and order a few boxes so they will release these sets this time. Maybe we will see some British or French Infantry in the future?
I would like to wish all my collector friends from around the world a Happy New Year. I hope I will see some new figures or playsets at the Toy Soldier shows this spring or at least by the end of the year. Barzso Playsets might release some new figure sets or have some old figure sets back in stock in the near future. We shall see in time.
There was a bunch of new products that came out the last few months of the year. Mainly from X-Force and Russian makers. Paul from the Stad’s Stuff page has reported most of these sets already. I will show a few pictures of some of these sets that I found either on the company website or ebay.
Today on ebay I saw a limited edition Publius Viking for $14.99!!
Expeditionary Force keeps producing new figures about every other month it seems. Last year they started releasing Napoleonic Wars figure sets. They also branched out to the War of 1812. Some of the British figures could be used for both Wars. The Highlander figures had different Uniforms at the Battle of New Orleans than they did at the Battle of Waterloo. For me it is not a big deal if everything is not exact. These sets are going for about $32.50. Here are a few pictures.
British Highlanders
British Line Infantry
British Royal Marines
American Militia
Also last year there was a bunch of Vietnam related sets from different companies like Mars and TSSD. But the best so far have be made by the Russian company called Plastic Platoon. So far they have released 3 different American sets. They are going for around $55 to $60 or so on ebay. Hobby Bunker has Plastic Platoon figures also. Here are a few pictures of the American Vietnam forces.
25th Infantry Division
1st Cavalry Division
US Marines
Another Russian company is Chintoys that start releasing sets of Napoleonic Officer sets and now US Civil War Officer sets. I saw some of the mounted sets on ebay today. They are going for about $50 for each set. Here are some pictures.
Union
Confederate
Here are a group of Medieval figures that are made by another Russian company called Warhansa. The set of Knights & Sergeants includes 5 different figures for $32. I think these are the best sculpted toy soldiers they have made to date.
Inzhener Basevich released some new figure sets based on the Russo-Japanese War. One set for each side. They are really nice, but are priced around $60.
The most common thing about all these new figures is the price. The cost of plastic Toy Soldiers have gone up so much the last few years. These are collectors prices and not prices for “Toys”, which is what the hobby of Toy Soldiers have become. It is for Adults now and made for a collection. Not as toys that we used to get when were kids. I remember going to the store and getting a set of Airfix toy soliders for less that $4.00. And now you cannot even get one figure for that price!
I ordered some new Playmobil parts and will start making some new customs soon. Besides that I will be finishing some other projects that I have been working on for a while.
