"how to identify figure manufacturer" Topic

Dear All,

I am sorting through hundreds of unpainted 25mm Napoleonic and American Revolutionary figures on behalf of an old, deceased friend. They include Minifig of multiple generations, Phoenix, Warrior, Garrison, Custom Cast, Hinchliffe, and Les Higgins.

Any advice on how to identify the various manufacturers is extremely welcome.

Thank you,

James Arnold
Napoleon Books

There's an old Minifigs catalogue on the internet somewhere, a simple search should find it.

I also think there is one for Garrison as well.

Minifigs put the figure code on the top of the figure base – usually two letters and the number.

Garrison had a @g symbol on the underside of the base .

Iirc lamming also had a n underside mark – but I didn't have many so mat be misremembering.

Hinchliffe had a stylised H and M combined mark and figure number in script character on the underside of the base.

Warrior aren't selling right now but their website is live including gallery of figure images. You'll soon recognise their style!

Dear James,
for Minifigs, please have a look here. You may find the 1985 catalogue pages and additional photos I found on eBay.

link

Best,
Stefano

The 1975 Minifigs catalogue is here PDF link with photos of some of the figures at the back.

Back when I specialized in 15mm, I used ro have a list of identifiers. The first was base types. Thin, thick, rectangular or oval. Head style and headgear, bulky clothes versus form fitting.

Dear All,

Thank you so much. 20th Maine (Colonel C. I presume): that's especially helpful. An hour ago I was looking at a bunch that had a number and a squiggle that just evaded me. It's garrison.

James

I suspect most of them are based so reading the codes won't be easy. If you start to put some photos up I'm sure most will get identified – I reckon I could certainly ID most of the Hinchliffe range. If you can read codes I could send copies of a Hinchliffe list. Warrior infantry are also pretty recogniseable and while they are not trading at present there are some photos on their web-site: warriorminiatures.com

@Stefanov: I understand you are a fan of vintage figures as I am getting together with some friends of mine. I also see you are Italian so I would like to get in touch with you to share some opinion and opportunity. Please let me know if you would like too.
Marco

@billynm – since op says unpainted I guessed probably unbased

Many of these are nowadays nearer to 20mm figures and I use a lot of them in my Waterloo diorama, although I don't use late Minifigs or Hinchliffe. The Old Metal Detector blog was quite a good reference document – the guy who ran it is sadly now dead but it is still on line and is a great resource