"S. African Mule" Topic

Hi Gents. This casting is a limber horse with a hole on the side for the limber and the inscription "S.Africa" on bottom of the base. Can you please help identify this casting by manufacturer and SKU? Thanks.

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You might check "South African Engineers." They used the old Holgar Ericson molds for a time.

SAE (South African Engineers (most likely). They produced 25mm figures and noted for the Colonial ranges. Long out of business and I don't know if anyone bought the range.

My spelling was off, Holger Eriksson. Story as it was told to me was that someone bought his molds and used cheap Apartheid-era labor to sell painted sets. (I do remember the sets. And well over 50 years ago I painted Eriksson figures myself as a beginning Napoleonics player.) There's a book on him and them:
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As with Dye, I never heard of the molds or masters resurfacing. It's possible the masters are still in Sweden.

With the spelling of Holger Eriksson (possible Swedish?) I found references under Swedish African Engineer (again SAE) painted sets for sale. So what he also posted may be very true about the use of Apartheid-era labor. The time frame certainly covers the time frame the company was in business. Need to check my old Model Soldiers Collectors Encyclopedia. (The one with the 90mm Samurai on the front cover.) Off to dig it out of my book collection. That book provides the history of all known figure makers up to the 1970's publishing date- including flat editors. While I do not have the specialist book on Eriksson, the answer could be well embedded in the text. Not surprising the cost of buying one as it will never make the top 10 best seller list due to the size of the targeted audience.

Oh, certainly Swedish. Karlstad, to be precise. Eriksson was semi-famous among the first generation of historical miniatures gamers. Used to carve master figures out of wood. Prince August still sells molds based on them. They say he worked for Authenticast until 1950, SAE until 1958 and Prince August thereafter. But you could still buy 30's, 40's and 54's direct from him at least to the late 1960's, and Scruby was casting 20's from his master figures.

(Mind you, I thought at the time the Eriksson figures were the smallest I'd seen our group accept as a 30. I can well understand why they'd now be called 25's.)

All, Thanks. It's SAE. Found it. Now I have some other figures to find. GJ