How To Identify Britains Toy Soldiers

Today I thought I'd share a few tips on how to Identify Vintage Britains Toy Soldiers. The W. Britain company started making these hollowcast lead soldiers in the 1890's and there have been a number of variations over the years. Originally, these lead toy soldiers were intended for children to play with but today such lead toy are known to be toxic and are collected by nostalgic adults. In this article, we'll be taking a look at antique and early vintage Britains toy Soldiers made prior to WWII.

Antique Britains Toy Soldiers, those that were made over 100 years ago, most often have a round base without any markings. Sometimes these early toy soldiers will have a paper label with copyright information on the bottom of the base. At some point, Britains gradually changed to using rectangular base and began engraving the copyright information on the base rather than using the paper label.

Pre-WII vintage Britains Toy Soldiers generally exhibited a greater attention to detail on the paint jobs. Workers at the factory tended to take greater pains to insure a quality and detailed paint job and more expensive and colorful paints were used.

A tiny detail was that these early Britains Toy Soldiers had mustaches. Britains stopped painting mustaches on their soliders in 1938. I'll give you one guess as to what, or who, influenced that decision. Another stylistic decision that was probably also influenced by current events in the 1930's was the elimination of jack boots in favor of fully trousered soldiers.

While finding an antique Britains Toy Soldier with the original box is rare these days, they can also offer some clues to the date when the solider was produced. Early boxes were more elaborate and had fancy script printing while newer ones have more generic printing and fonts.

One thing to watch out for when you look at vintage Britains Toy Soldiers is that often you'll find damage to the figure from play and age. Things like helmet spikes, bayonets, lance tips and other little protrusions are often missing from these old toy soldiers. You should also watch out for things like repair and retouching that can affect the value of a antique lead toy solider.

I hope you've found this guide on how to Identify Antique Britains Toy Soldiers helpful.

Marx Playsets

In the realm of plastic toy soldiers, Marx Playsets are probably the most sought after toy soldiers. An intact, near mint, Marx Playset is a rare find since the little boys who owned these sets put them to good use. Finding some of the rarer sets, even in pieces and in fair condition, can be quite a challenge.

The heyday of Marx Playsets was in the 1950's and 1960's. Just about every boy in that era would have a Marx Playset circled in the Sears Christmas Catalog. Just ask anyone who was a kid back then. They'll tell you about the Marx Daniel Boone playset they asked Santa to bring. Or maybe they'll recall the Marx medieval castle playset with a real moat that could hold water until your little brother poked a hole in it. Perhaps they'll mention the Marx Civil War playset with light blue Union soldiers and gray Confederates. They could mention the popular Marx dinosaur playsets or Marx Western playsets.

Marx Playsets consisted of action figures, usually military, and accessories like cannons and diorama elements. The attraction of these playsets were that they were easy for kids to set up. Once setup they could lead to hours of make-believe fun.

Today, these kids are adults and enjoy collecting Marx playsets in order to recapture some of those happy childhood times. You can often find these vintage Marx playsets and individual pieces on online auctions sites like eBay. There have been some modern reissues as well but for the serious collector only the originals will do.

Do you have a Marx Playset story to add?

Collectible Toy Soldiers Free Catalogue

Where can one find a Collectible Toy Soldiers Free Catalog? If you're like me, when you were a kid you couldn't wait for the Sears Christmas Catalog to show up at your door. You could look at the toy soldier sets, like those from Marx, and dream about seeing them Christmas morning. I still enjoy looking at catalogs today even though I'm much older. Where are some sources for these catalogs today?

My favorite Collectible Toy Soldiers Free Catalog today is, as you might guess, eBay. I can spend a lot of time just surfing through and searching the collectible toy soldier listings there. If I'm not careful, I'll end up buying some too! However, you can't always have your computer with you. So, what are some offline collectible toy soldier catalogues you might consider?

Here's the problem, I've searched Google for 'Collectible Toy Soldiers Free Catalogue' and variations of this several times and I haven't been able to find any company that still offered free print catalogs. A few I knew about from years ago don't seem to be in business any longer. I guess that's one of the downsides of everything being available on eBay these days.

So, if you know of a company that provides a Free Print Catalog for Collectible Toy Soldiers please leave a comment here and let me know.