Welcome to my vintage toy soldier website. Each month I intend to post one blog including pictures and information on a single range or figures produced by one maker. These makers would mostly have been active some time ago; a few pre-1950, many between then and 1980 and a few 1980 to 2000 or later.

I’ve been collecting toy figures since about 1960, having grown up within walking distance of Portobello Rd in West London, in those days and still now a place to go for vintage lead soldiers. I’m somewhat reclusive but have been around the collecting scene for many years, mostly buying but occasionally selling and even producing my own figures from time to time.

I decided to construct this website because toy soldiers have been a constant delight in my life. It’s not an obsession with me, other interests and work have regularly drawn me away from it, but I’ve always returned, mainly because it brings together some of my interests; history, painting, sculpting, collecting. In the past I’ve been engaged in adventurous and often dangerous occupations, and where some might have sought therapy or the oblivion of drink to make sense of or forget traumatic experiences, I tended to turn to sport, writing and collecting, and a drink or two to try to be social. I’m also an author (James A Lloyd).

It’s a very forgiving hobby, you can immerse yourself as much as you feel comfortable with, it needn’t take up a lot of room, nor equipment if you tailor it to your needs and pocket.

I use the words toy soldiers to cover all types of figures, even those not military. My favourite era is the ancient world; there is still so much still to be discovered about it. Myth and legend were verbally passed down, exaggerated and often debunked as fantasy. Now, the more we learn from archaeology, the less we dismiss. Take the story of the Amazons; we are as fascinated by them now as the classical Greeks were; they were obsessed with the rumours and limited contact they had with the warrior women of the far steppes on the edge of the Persian empire; their epics are peppered with references to them, their vases often depicting them in battle. Now we know that such female warriors did exist within the bronze-age nomadic steppe tribes; not perhaps quite like their Hollywood depictions, but closer to their mythical counterparts than anyone would have believed even a few decades ago. For me, figures of Amazons are still toy soldiers, but so are space figures, civilians and any other figure constructed of any material less than 80mm tall; this size is arbitrary, just a decision to limit my collection. I also include accessories; from bushes to castles. I don’t collect erotic or gratuitously naked figures, but that’s a personal decision and doesn’t preclude elements of undress where it is historically, or mythically correct, as with ancient Minoan female fashion, neither would I criticise anyone who does collect them.

I also don’t care if figures aren’t absolutely historically correct, I still remember the arguments that used to reverberate around wargame groups in the 1970’s; heated exchanges over a bit of roman or Dacian armour, or the use of stirrups etc. Toy soldier are about much more than that.

Before I moved away from London and downsized, my collection took up one large room, but the books and magazines that I’d accumulated were everywhere. I gave them all away; all my copies of Plastic Warrior, Spaceships Away, Military Modelling and all my books except a few select ones. I also found and reluctantly disposed of piles of old mail order lists, fascinating histories of toy soldier collecting, years of lists from the likes of George Kearton, Norman Joplin, Shamus Wade and many other collecting/dealer friends who sent out lists by mail and recieved orders by landline telephone, before the internet took over our lives.

To sum up, this website is dedicated to my collection, my personal taste, and I hope that the figures shown are of interest to other collectors or web browsers, some are well attested already in various publications, others not often seen and some perhaps not seen before, it’s an eclectic collection. I’m happy to discuss any aspect of collecting, so long as dogma and ideology doesn’t seep in, it’s just a hobby. I also don’t care much about the market value of any figure; a high market price is not an indication of scarcity, or that it will hold that premium. The figures shown are all either from my current or past collection. I don’t really know all I have in storage, now and again I sell some and buy many more. As the posts expand I have to dig figures out to add them and find those I forgot I had. I recently found a bundle of old catalogues and have spent hours happily browsing them. I hope you have as much joy from collecting as I do.

Either use the comments boxes, or email me

info@jimstoysoldiers.com