We had a great time at the Midwest Toy Soldier Show. We left Pennsylvania on Thursday morning around 4:45am and arrived in Lafayette, Indiana a little after 3pm. The trip was not too bad. There were no traffic delays, but some rain. There was a tornado in the southern part of Indiana that did not affect us. We took everything to the room and then got something to eat. Afterwards, I walked around the 1st floor as some of the vendors were room trading already.

Across from our room was Rick Keller & Rick Lipp. They had a bunch of playsets and vintage Marx toy soldiers. Plus, some HO scale Atlantic figure sets. At one point on Saturday, a collector came and purchased about 15 playsets & some other things from them.

After I said Hello to Keller & Lipp, I went to see Mike Kutnick. As usual he had a bunch of Barzso and some unique things. I picked up some Barzso accessories to add to my collection for the Woodland Indians. Mike had a bunch of accessories to pick through and some Barzso figure sets. I also found some Austin Miniature WWII Japanese and Marines.

Next to Mike was Rod Chapman’s room. He had some vintage plastic and dime store toy soldiers.

Doug Wood had a bunch of vintage plastic toy soldiers, playsets and vehicles. There were Bags of Marx Germans at good prices. Plus, some Marx American & German Soldiers with some minor damage at great prices too.

Rich Egan had a bunch of Conte and Barzso products. He always has some quality playsets or figures with him.

There was another collector that was selling off John Jenkins toy soldiers and some other brands. I think they were around $25 to $30 each. I forgot his name; I will try to update this later. He will be selling things again at the Gettysburg Toy Soldier Show on April 21st.

We took part in the room trading on Friday & Saturday. Each morning, we opened between 9am & 10am. We took a 3 hour break mid-day and were open to around 9pm each night. The crowds were a lot less this year. But we had more sales than the last time we were here two years ago. I talked to a lot of collectors and other vendors. There was a lot of interest in the new Plains Indians that I am making. Because the foot traffic was slow, I started walking around to see what other vendors had. I found some nice things and good prices.

John Anderson had a fire sale going on. At first, I wasn’t really interested in looking through a bunch of boxes and small storage containers that he had. I saw a lot of Marx playsets and boxes with Marx or other vintage plastic stuff. I am not a big Marx collector. John kept on telling me to take a look, things were cheap. So, I did and I found a few things that I liked. The first was this Airfix Footballers boxed set. There were 47 soccer figures in 1/32 scale or 54mm. The box came with 29 figures and the rest were extra. All of this for $10. This was actually a set that I was looking for to add to my Airfix collection. It is a hard set to find over here in the states.

I found this Aurora Camelot set from John too. I paid $5 for this set. It is rare and hard to find. I love sculpting and poses with this set. The models are 54mm and made in a hard model plastic.

Mike Kutnick had some Austin Miniatures World War II sets that I purchased. I got this Japanese set for $35. I have two sets already. I like the sculpting on these figures too. They are around 58mm and made out a hard resin. They are painted a beige color. The weapons are made out of metal. Maybe one day they will do them in plastic.

The second Austin Set was another limited edition set, World War II US Marines. I also paid $35 for this one too. There were 8 toy soldiers in this container. I think two were Character figures. The one with the Cigar is “Gunny”, I believe. The last pictured figure with the pistol and Thompson is an Officer. These were around 58mm and made out of resin with the metal weapons too. Some of these models look like they will be made into plastic in the near future.

Well this wraps up the first part of our two-part review of the Midwest Toy Soldier Show. I wish I was able to take more pictures of the room trading. They were a lot of good deals. A collector sold his Barzso Playset collection of 14 playsets. They went for $200 to $300 a piece. We missed this sale while we were out eating on Saturday. I will have more updates about the show and the other things I picked up at the show too in the next post this weekend.