"Whatever happened to the Hinchliffe "System 12" range." Topic

A thought stimulated by the Peter Laing thread, whatever happened to the Hinchliffe 12mm "System 12" range of Napoleonics?

I had both an Austrian and a French army. I think I got them as "payment" for my work on Northern Millitaire. They are the only two armies I've ever sold on. {Easy come, easy go}

I've a couple of remnants in my bits box. a rather nice Austrian cuirassier and an equally nice dragoon. All in all, I think the Austrians were better than the French.

I remember the range advertised in Military Modeling. It was an ambitious project – not just figures, but a whole range of terrain all to the same scale.

I guess it just never caught on and was discontinued.

It had a short life and passed away suddenly.

I think I still have a cottage and some wall sections.

Allen

It would fit in nicely with all these new 10mm ranges though. I think it was an American product produced under licence by Hinchcliffe in the UK.

Could have been. Could have not been. Could have been "Hinchcliffe" after all, never mind all those little red boxes that said differently.

This is the Internet. There is no truth; there are no facts; there are only opinions, and all are equally valid.

Allen

Weak ankles.

Then they started selling Heritage 15mm instead, I believe – think this might be what mark the Plastics fan means.

I think the terrain pieces were reissued by Hinchliffe in the very late 1970s (but described as 15 mm) when they introduced their own (post-Heritage) 15 mm Napoleonic range. I don't remember any of the smaller scale stuff being issued after Hinchliffe was acquired by Skytrex around 1982.

Hinchliffe also made small range of French Napoleonics in 15mm in the late 1970s after it was clear that System 12 wasn't going anywhere for them. These were their own make, not Heritage. I bought some from a long-gone hobby store in Jacksonville FL around 1986 (to my surprise, and possibly that of the owner).

[This is the Internet. There is no truth; there are no facts; there are only opinions, and all are equally valid.]

I was ready to believe you Allen, but then I realized you had posted it on the internet so it became instantly suspect. If you would like to write that down on a real piece of paper, then it will instantly become a factual statement.

So the queation now is, do the moulds still exist and, if so, where are they?

They were nice figures. I built two armies using "Grand Army" rules by Don Lowry to go with my N-gauge Scruby figures.

Dan

Jeremy,

I was recently told by the owner of Hinchliffe that the molds were trashed. BTW, are you sure you had Austrians? As far as I know they only made British and French before the line was discontinued.

Bob