Our Toy Soldier Shop Starts here:
My Collection of Toy Soldiers and Models
I have been a collector of Toy Soldiers, as well as a enthusiastic Model Maker, since I was at School of Seven years of age. I began collecting when I was Gifted a box of those now famous AIRFIX Polythene Plastic 1/32 figures back in the early Seventies. My friends and I used to spend our Saturday Afternoons sometimes painting them. We also used to play and collect a lot of the AIRFIX HO:OO Scale Figures also made at that time. Money was short, and we used papier Mache with Domestic Green House Paint for our scenery, and sometimes Artex over chicken wire, also painted. Sand, Dust and Small stones, came from a local builders yard, and twigs and trees from the Garden.
Our folks were not hugely rich, pocket monies were small and one had to maximize assetts and resources.
During the Seventies, the local High Street Hobby shop began to stock the Italian ATLANTC series of polythene Plastic figures. These were most welcome, they made and sold attrractive artwork boxes, which were in many sizes and we could afford. I began buying ATLANTIC Figures avidly, and dropped the rather more expensive Airfix items..... I built a large collection of these Italian sets. Better still, in the Vehicle and artillery sets you actually got TWO of the vehicles or Field Pieces, not merely one.....To children, the entire future of our Hobby and Past time, this two sets of factors, affordability, and the ability to SEE something soon for your hard spent funds, are highly important. I think very soon, shortly, with changes to our sociaty and wage structures and spiralling energy and other costs, they are going to be again.
Why did we buy them? Colourful promising, hopeful Artwork Boxes which were exciting and interesting, Prices which were affordable and not just plain greedy, and the massively added value of having the ability to buy many differrent soldiers and vehicles etc at pocket Money Prices.
Oras Basil Fawlty once put it "Amphibious Landing Craft Shape" Lol.....
Plainly speaking, we messed around with paint, Glue and Plasticine, worked out assembly diagrams, and had good old fashioned FUN !!! (That thing called Laugheter, enjoyment and sheer wit, which has just about vanished from Modern Cancellation "Thread" Society. John Cleese the famous Fawlty Towers Hotel Comedien, is entirely right and justified in what he says today. Things have changed, sadly, it is not for the better or for our great good....It effects everyone, even the buyers and collectors and Model makers who are the back bone of our Industrie and Business and Hobby Interests.
It was having some FUN that counted, not scale precision or perfection. That comes much later, if the young collector makes it past the Penny Pinching Bosses, a sudden Dole Que, a WB 40, and getting Married..... and managing in older age to configure your Telegram Account....all as John said to me "A Personal Victory worth celebrating".
I used to greatly ENJOY this Hobby, and I very much hope, despite our ever increasingly Globalized and Interconnected world, with its variety of challenges, that you too will get a great deal of eprsonal reward and pleasure from entering into this Hobby. As my Grandmother always used to say to us "If somethings worth doing, its worth doing well".
Before my young years fully came to an end, in the great wide and often crazy world of "work", I graduated thanks to several long spells spent gardning for my wonderfuly kind Aunt, onto those expensive Tamiya hard Plastic figures and Vehicle Kits. (the oens you would have had years ago if only you had the Money). I amassed quite a good collection, though not as much as the wealthy young man i went to school with who had a huge collecion of the stuff. But collecting is not about rivalry or envy, it is about enjoying a quiet or shared past time, be it in a club or at home. Or around friends. Without this, what do one bother for? I mean this hobby without any passion, Motivation or good old fashioned dare i use this word, LOVE, is just a plaine waste of time.
Whatever you get out of this hobby, make sure it is worthwhile, and as dear old Grandma used to say "Worth doing Well".
Max Chevallier France Summer 2026
CHOTA SAHIB (LITTLE LORD)
The creative genius of Sid and Mary Horton, this range was number 2 best seller in the UK for many years, until Sid's rather sad and sudden passing. I followed his meteoric Industry rise during the Seventies through the pages of Military Modelling magazine, and when I joined the BMSS (under an assumed name) I followed his progress through the Pages of the BULLETTIN Journal they regularly posted to our House back then. I never guessed that one day, I was to be the Proud owner of the entire range he had created, or indeed, the events which were to follow the purchase I made in 2009....
Collecting Memories too....
Thirty Years War and 1661
Part of my private collection contains figures taken and based upon the Sixteenth Century and the Thirty Years (or )War of Religion) in Europe. I own the sites and buildings of two important old Chateux in the Region, and so it was entirely apropriate for me, (even in advance !!!) to have a collection area dedicated to this.
When one is a Living Descendant from Charles Martel, can trace a Descent from Antiquity, and ones own son was kidnapped by Religious extremists, then Religion and its surrounding challenges is never very far away.......I grew up as son to a French father in the UK Mainland, ,my early years were divided between France and the UK, in the era known as "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
Bombs and Kidnappings, shootings Beating Punishments and Car and Booby Trapped Devices , where danger was everywhere, and Sectarian Conflict occurred as the "Norm".
We had just walked past a shop in Bristol, when the whole shop front exploded, flying Glass everywhere....Another time, we were in London, and drove past a spot where, minutes after, a huge bomb detonated.....
A number of figurine subjects from that era therefore feature in my Collection.....and I designed for my brand new series, as a Peace Time comemoration.....
As with all my Toy Soldier Collecting, I aim to represent all sides of the Histories, while remaining strictly neutral.
My Collection covers the Napoleonic Epoch, Ancient Egypt and Greece, mighty Rome, and the Barbarian and Saxon Viking Invaders who came afterwards. I have some "British Empire" and Colonialist Forces, a lot of Colonialist troops from Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and the Soudan too. Finaly the collection finishes at World War two , with General Leclerc (Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque) and the Liberation of Alsace Lorraine by French and Allied Forces.
I have created several Medium sized HO/OO (sorry its now called 1/72 scale but old habits die hard) Dioramas, which feature Verdun, the Somme, The Ardennes in 1944 and the Western Desert Battles too.
I hope one day to open a working Visitable MUSEE (Museum and workshops) at our rather old and very large site, but world events and the current incertitudes regarding the wars in the East, have placed our plans on the shelf.
We strictly cannot accept or receive visits at this time, please respect this arrangement.
I hope you will enjoy loking at some of my Private collection I have placed here, and wish you well for your future in our Globalized World.
In the old days when I grew up, and began collecting, it was very easy. One bought the soldiers, maybe glued them together, and then painted them and did some scenery.
I used, (and by the way still work with) a sketch book, Pencils, Poster Paints, Plasticine, Plaster, Clay, Copper and Aluminium Wire, Putty, and Scratch building , just as I had to do when young for sheer lack of resources....
Now it is
Online Forums, Facebook "Groups" which ever change,, Social (Often Anti Social !!) Media,
3D Print matrixes, Computers, Cad Cam, mass production, Resin and a whole raft of other strange un familiar things.
I wonder where it will lead you???