" Toy soldiers available in the 1890s?" Topic

I suspect this may be a long shot, but I am constantly amazed by the expertise here on TMP.

I know something about early Britains, and I can at least tell a Heyde from a Lucotte. I've got some general books. But here's what I want to know, or get directions towards:

I'm about halfway through my third book for discerning young persons, by the name of "The Island of Mad Scientists". It's late in 1894 and a parcel of toy soldiers arrives from Gamages in London. It contains some of the first Britains figures. I know what some of them would have been. But I don't have a list of those early releases. Nor do I know what else the absurdly resourceful Lal Singh (the heroic old soldier who is a cross between Jeeves and James Bond) might be able to mail order from France or Germany. After all, there must be opponents to fight.

So, if you can, help me get wargaming into a novel for impressionable young minds!

How about flats?

I know a bit about early Britains, which came out in 1893 and were much cheaper than the continental toys, since they weren't imported, and were hollow (thus saving metal and freight costs). To begin with they were just British troops, with no opponents. I don't know a lot about flats.

This fellow might be able to help

link

I believe Lucottes and possibly Mignots wer available prior to this from France. Also possibly Heyde from Germany.

Maybe my brother will answer this. He knows quite a bit about 54mm toy soldiers.

Heyde was an active exporter, so it's entirely likely Gamages would carry them. Britains early advertising made it clear they were English made, which seems to me a direct knock at Heyde. Heyde made a whole bunch of foreign armies, ancients, etc., so you'd be safe with just about anything. Mignot likewise had a broad and varied range, but I don't know how many Mignots found their way into other countries.

So according to James Opie, The Great Book of Britains (New Cavendish Books, 1993), by 1894 Britains had put out 17 sets, but all were of the British army. It wasn't until the mid-1900s that Britains really started in with the foreign armies, although they did do US and Spanish troops in 1898 for the Spanish-American War, Boer cavalry and infantry in 1900 and Sudanese and Egyptian forces in 1901. There was also Boer infantry in 1895, and that seemed to be the first non-British fighting men done by Britains. Their 1896 ad, reprinted in Opie, refers to "English-made Superior Lead Soldiers" and "manufactured by English work peiople, and are intended to take th eplace of the wretched caricatures of British troops modelled and manufactured abroad."

As for Heyde, Hans Henning Roer, in Old German Toy Soldiers (Palagonia Verlag, 1993), says that prior to the First World War, Heyde was the world's largest exporter of toy soldiers and that "his products caught on well with the English public." (pp. 20-21) As I said in my last post, Heyde offered a wide variety of foreign (i.e., non-German) armies from a wide variety of time periods.