"To paint or not to paint?" Topic

A museum owner has asked me to restore to new appearance a bunch of old dime store soldiers, ie Barclay and Manoil. But should I? I'm afraid of devaluing them if I did. Not that I'm such a bad painter, I'm just concerned that new paint on an old figure may do more harm than good monetarily.
Thanks for any help!
Bob

Check that you are not looking at something which is really valuable (if they are worth serious money don't touch them), then warn him that repainting them may devalue them, and go ahead is he wants you to.

If there are duplicates, personally I would suggest trying to get one of each kind painted as they would have been to display with others left in their current condition.

But mainly depends on what the owner wants – end of the day, it's their decision.

Years ago a friend of my sister asked me to repaint a dozen dimestore soldiers that were all worn and chipped, they were her fathers and she found them in a box in the attic. His birthday was coming up and she wanted to give him something special. I painted the figures, matching the colors very carefully and making them look all shiny and new. I was told that when he opened the box he cried. The soldiers were somewhat expensive but I don't think he cared. If you are being asked to paint the figures, tell them your concerns. If they still want you to paint them, then paint.

I assume, cavcrazy, that he cried because of the memories of the soldiers as they were then, and not cried because they had been repainted?

Yes, he cried because of all the memories he had of playing with his toy soldiers as a child. I was very honored to paint them.

'A museum owner'? In Britain there are very strict guidelines regulating the treatment of museum objects… I am guessing this is a private collection?

How often do we hear of artifacts or art being damaged by restoration attempts? But that said, these are toy soldiers, not Michaelangelo.

Won't you need to strip the original paint to do a good job? If so you'll need to research the safest way to do that.

Any reason why he doesn't just have fully painted replicas that he can display alongside the originals?

I'm pretty sure painting them would be a bad idea for a number of reasons listed above, you know it yourself?

IMO he should get some new toy soldiers to display in harmony with the loved toys.

If someone owns them outright, and wants you to re-paint them, then warn the guy that it may devalue the soldiers.

And then re-paint them. They are only toy soldiers, after all, with thousands of copies in existence.

Not necessarily:

link

And that is from 2001.

Paint them, they are toys