"Old Minifigs WW1 Ships" Topic

I've recently acquired an 80 ship fleet of Minifigs WW1 vessels. And quite nice they are, with a pleasingly simple antique style to them.
picture

Some are readily recognizable, for example I have ships which are clearly the battlecruisers Inflexible, Indomitable and Lion. Others are considerably more generic. Although no doubt they could stand in for anything with a similar appearance and funnel arrangement, the fact that the maker saw fit to cast numbers on the side of the hulls (cruiser "C VII" for example) certainly leads me to believe they were intended to model specific prototypes.

I've heard that scans of the 1970's catalog listings survive somewhere on the internet, but my searches have been futile. Anyone know of their whereabouts ?

Regards,
Steve

Never heard of them. They are quite antique looking.

Steve,

I have posted the listing here

link

on my Vintage Wargaming blog.

There are also a couple of links to posts on Bob Cordery's Wargaming Miscellany blog which have identified pictures of some of the models.

That's what I love about this place, no matter what your query, someone knows the answer. :)

That's great ! Thanks very much, Old Metal Detector. That list will help a lot. Now the intriguing part, I do believe I have several additional ships not on that list, but consistent in style with them. With the list in hand, I'll take a closer inventory this week.

Steve

Those ships are cool. Look a bit like the old Tootsie Toys. Definitely antique looking. I think I have one in my collection if they are 1/1200 but never knew what it was.

Al

I have an early catalogue somewhere but don't remember ships……although they did do miniminifigs which were 6mm as I recall. I'll try and dig it out.

The Minfigs catalog sheet says "we are unable to…confirm the exact scale". Not surprising since there really isn't one. ;-)

It's a moving target. For length, I measure the light cruisers at around 1/1720, dreadnoughts anywhere from 1/1800 to Lion which scales out at 1/2100. Given that some of the ships fit comfortably inside a Jane's silhouette (1/1920) for length but tower over it in height, the 1/1500 scale which I've seen mentioned seems a reasonable approximation.

With the high freeboards and exaggerated funnels, we're not talking painstaking realism here anyway. It's the impression that counts and I'm fine with that.

Steve

I seem to remember reading an article, or question, about them in which Neville Dickinson denied ever having made any ships…..

That interesting, Chouan. Although catalog listings and ships in the hand which correspond to it are hard to deny.

On the other hand, I have also drawn the conclusion that Minifigs at least did not commission this range. How do you do that and not specify the scale or let a sculptor work with such a casual treatment of it ?

Steve

Guys, I wouldn't bump my own thread without something new to say, but I'd like to post an update on the origin of these models. I've done some research and am confident that I've made a postive ID.

They were manufactured by the "B.M.C." company on a contract basis for Bassett-Lowke (perhaps originally produced for the Jane Naval Wargame) and marketed in a series called "The World's Warships in Miniature" before and during the first part of WW1. The originals were hollow cast (my ships are these) and later copies were solid lead (Minifigs style).

Details on my blog:
castlesoftin.blogspot.com

Regards,
Steve

Wow! Nice bit of detective work there, Steve, and quite an interesting read, congratulations!