The featured maker on this first post is Hazelwood Miniatures. As far as I know they didn’t last long and I vaguely remembered admiring their ancient Egyptian from an advertisement in Military Modelling, I understand it was in a 1974 issue. I’ve managed to pick up a few of these and a couple of Hittite figures I didn’t realise they’d produced. They are slightly smaller than 54mm and were sold in kit form; single castings with choice of weapons, shields or standards. As you can see from the images they were well modelled, cleanly cast and attractively posed, I think they were inspired, as were many makers in the 70s, by illustrations from the Lillian and Fred Funken books. I assembled and painted these myself.

Does anyone know anything about this maker or if they made any other figures?

I hope to post every few weeks, highlighting an individual range or figure, sometimes purely toy figures, sometimes miniatures, from makers from all countries, metal and plastic, some will be obscure like these, but others that are well known, all from my collection. I’m not fussy about scale, I have examples from 20mm up to 70mm. I’m a bit of an ancient history buff, so this era is well represented, but any distinctive style or subject matter will tempt me to start another little cameo collection.

The featured maker of the next post will be Elastolin, specifically the soft plastic Bayeux tapestry figures. Also coming soon are very early 54mm Hinton Hunts and the Heyde AWI bivouac scene. Regarding Heyde or any other of the early makers, like most collectors I do prefer original figures, but I’m not averse to replicas; good replicas cost almost as much as the original so I don’t think they devalue the originals, and a knowledgeable collector will know the difference. I’ve never collected as an investment, I keep figures too long. To collect for investment, you must be willing to sell at the top of market and your favourite figure might be the most valuable. I’ve sold many figures over the years and have been labelled a dealer in the past, I’m not but have bought job lots of figures I don’t want to obtain the few I do. I regularly took a pitch at the London Toy Soldier show (when it was run by Norman Joplin) or the Plastic Warrior Show (when it was held in Richmond) to sell off unwanted figures or stale collections to enable me to buy yet more. I have nothing but admiration for those who are toy soldier (or just toy) dealers, makers or established experts, it’s a bumpy road to travel and they have made my collecting experience far richer by being there.