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Toy Soldier Collector Casting around

Casting around


Paul Stocker looks at the latest castings to arrive on the market

Dorset Soldiers
Timpo medievals and other release


Giles Brown’s latest releases are many and varied but I can’t help giving precedence to his latest reproductions of Timpo’s medieval figures from the 1950s.

Giles has followed up his version of Timpo’s ‘Quentin Durward’ set with a reproduction of the mounted knight from the earlier ‘Ivanhoe’ set. Timpo’s set of six mounted figures was the first time the company teamed up with MGM to produce a set of model figures based on the principal characters of a movie. The figures were actually a re-issue of Timpo’s mounted knight with a lance, previously issued alongside a mounted knight with a sword and a chrome plated finish to represent armour and mounted on a simply painted black or brown horse. Three of the ‘Ivanhoe’ figures were painted in colours directly representing characters in the 1952 movie but the other three were painted in colours devised by Timpo.


Timpo ‘Ivanhoe’ knight casting

‘Ivanhoe’ knight painted

Timpo produced this set between around 1951 and 1956 although they became less widely available after the second collaboration with MGM led to the release of the ‘Knights of the Round Table’ set to coincide with the release of that MGM film in 1953. Perhaps as a result of the success of the second set, whose figures depicted the characters from the film much more closely with moveable visors and coloured plumes, the ‘Ivanhoe’ figures were remodeled and re-released with moveable visors. Examples of these second release figures are very rare but, for some reason, Timpo included a re-painted version in the Round Table set to depict the character of the Green Knight.

Giles will be making the mounted knight available with different coloured plumes and painted in different colours. The mounted knight casting costs £10.55 (£28 painted gloss).

To accompany the mounted knight, Giles has produced two Timpo medieval figures on foot. One is King Arthur from that Round Table set, thought by many, including me, to be a small masterpiece of design and casting. The pose of the figure is based on Arthur as he appears at the Round Table early on in the movie leading his Knights in their sacred oath and it replicates the character wonderfully well. I suppose it represents praise of a sort that the figure was reproduced, albeit in plastic and much less successfully, at least twice: first by Lone Star and much later by a French manufacturer of cheap plastics.


Timpo King Arthur and foot knight

King Arthur and foot knight painted
 

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