"Refurbished 1970s Austrian Minnifigs." Topic

Some 1970s era Minifigs getting refurbished by my multi-talented farmhand.

link

Before

After

More pics at the Woolshed.

Cheers
Brian

Very cool :~)

Cheers,
John

The bases look too irregular for Minifigs. While I don't have any Austrians, I do have British, French, Bavarian and Spanish. All the bases are more regularly rectangles and you should be able to see the model code scratched on to the base.

Old School Cool. Love the older Minifigs. I have thousands of Russians, French, and British.

The bases look too irregular for Minifigs.

That is why I think the rank and file may have been drop cast. Not condoning piracy or anything but back in the 70s to get models from Britain to New Zealand we had to go to the Post Office every day to get a £2.00 GBP until you got to the order total and then wait six months for it to arrive by sea. In those days I am not sure anyone even thought about piracy to be honest. Hell, when I was about ten a mate and I cast some airfix acw figures after making a mould out of plaster of paris. They were not very good.

The advances in your skills are quite apparent. But the real scene stealer is the basing! Basing has come a LONG way since the '70's.

The advances in your skills are quite apparent. But the real scene stealer is the basing! Basing has come a LONG way since the '70's.

Ha ha. I didn't paint these ones – neither the old version or the updated. The first was acquired about 1980-82 (not sure when) and the updated by my mate who lives at my Woolshed.

Hi Brian – I remember those days too. I'd go into the PO and buy my 1st 2 pound postal order, then my mum (who knew this particular lady) would go in and buy 1. Then I'd go in and buy another 1. In the end she would just sell me what I wanted to save (her) time and mucking about. Nice to have friends in the right places. I also did some casting but mine were the British Paratroopers. Not fantastic but I got a man standing firing at something on the ground instead of into the air by combining the standing firing into the air figure and the kneeling firing figures. In Wellington there was also the trip into town with as much money as you could earn/save/scrounge to buy whatever came into Modelcrafts and Hobbies in their twice yearly shipment. You couldn't always be that fussy about what you bought but there was a lot of conversions and scratch building done in those days.

I too have memories of scrounging £2.00 GBP Postal Orders. And I did my share of casting miniatures – my most successful project being a Blemmye army of the WRG AEIR type (ie the one that never existed because they created a hybrid of Blemmye and Meriotic Kushites). The cavalry were converted from one pose of early Byzantines (with a heavily modified helmet and an ostrich plume) and the light infantry archers a modified late Roman auxiliary archer and a heavily modified Classical Greek javelin man, all produced in RTV molds. The elephant I made in plasticine pieces and poured into a plaster of paris mold. Fun times!

As an aside, I always wondered why Airfix had a paratrooper shooting into the air; doing what, shooting at his mates as they descended?

Cheers,
John

Here are some drummers that should fit with them. The current Minifigs are a bit larger (wider) so may not fit with yours.

auction

I've got Minifigs Austrians from the late sixties – mine are 20mm. They look similar to yours – are they 20mm? It wasn't long after I got mine that Minifigs invented 25mm.

DBDD

I've got Minifigs Austrians from the late sixties – mine are 20mm. They look similar to yours – are they 20mm? It wasn't long after I got mine that Minifigs invented 25mm.

Maybe that is what these are. The command are def 70s. The Grenadiers we have are also 25mm minifigs.

Thanks for that information – If these are 60s Minifigs that makes these guys almost as old as me.

I'll post a photo of some of mine later. They were sold painted by Minifigs for 2/- (two shillings) each – about twice the price of the unpainted castings.

DBDD

I'd guess that the advancing infantryman is code AN5s. That was part of the S range produced from roughly 1968 to 1976. This was the first 25mm range. There was an earlier 20mm range produced until about 1971. The officers are from a later range which is still available and was produced from 1976 or so.

Here is a link to the history
link

(Perhaps I should get out a bit more)

(Perhaps I should get out a bit more)

LOL. Thanks for the info.Very interesting.

To confirm Trockledockle's statement, Minifigs was originally known as "Alberken" when it was started in 1964 (the original proprietors were Albert Horsfield and Ken Watkins), in Newark, Nottinghamshire, England – now regarded as the hub of the modern wargaming world! The figures were sort of 20mm but were slowly "growing" into the "S Range" and "guest" sculptors included the likes of Peter Gilder. Albert died in a car accident in 1965, and the firm was sold to Neville Dickinson, who with sculptor Dick Higgs, saw the ranges morph into the "true 25mm range" that is still being sold today.