Heyde AWI British bivouac scene. (1)

I’ve always liked 48mm Heyde toy soldiers and, as with all my collection, had to decide which small cameo to add, representing this manufacturer. Some are too rare and expensive, others too common (still expensive) or outside my areas of interest. Eventually I decided on this scene. There are a number of different elements and no box seems to have be sold with them all. I’ve also added extra accessories that I feel fit into the scene. I only use Heyde but as most accessories were used in different sets, I’m not particular about them; if they look ok, I’ll use them.

Of course, replicas have been made, by collectors and professionals, and are still being made. However, these cost almost as much as original items and the best are often difficult to identify as replicas, some are posed in vignettes never done by Heyde. I’m not averse to them, maybe because I’m not an investment collector; the re-sale value of a figure isn’t important and I spend what I can afford. You’ll see this in the diversity of my collection; I’m as keen on affordable, often unappreciated figures as I am on expensive ones. Some are harder to find than expensive ones, and for me, more desirable. However, I do respect the integrity of my figures; I don’t mess with old toy figures and try to obtain them in as original condition as possible.

Here are a few of the figures, vignettes and accessories in my Heyde scene. As you can see they were at one time glued to a cardboard base, all the figure elements in my set are like this. I’ll post more of these soon including the larger vignettes. I’ll also post an image of the full bivouac when I find time to set it up to photograph. I intend to keep each post fairly short and like to show each individual element, If you double click on any image, it will enlarge.

I love these simple, very attractive toy soldiers, a completely different concept from contemporary British manufacturers.

There are good books either devoted to or referencing Heyde figures, so I’ll let these images do the work here. I may do a list of my favourite reference books if I get time