Toy Soldier Collector Magazine

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Return to San Antonio

Steve Rhea reviews the Second Annual Texas Toy Soldier Show

In May of 2007 Nick VerSteeg, proprietor of Toy Soldiers of San Diego, did a great service for the collector community by organizing the first ever Texas-based show for toy soldier collectors. The second annual show was held in San Antonio on May 24-25, which is the Memorial Day public holiday weekend in the US. The show was held in Bolivar Hall in the La Villita district of San Antonio, which is now a public plaza where numerous old buildings from the Spanish colonial period are preserved and serve as shops, offices, restaurants and exhibition spaces. As one of the oldest cities in Texas, San Antonio has a rich cultural and military history, is the site of the Alamo and numerous other Catholic missions, and has several military bases located nearby. Since active and retired military personnel make up a large part of the collector base, this makes San Antonio a perfect venue for the show.

Bolivar Hall could just barely contain the show exhibits, which ran the gamut of toy soldier collectibles. Everything from early Britains and Mignot figures to the latest offerings from the current manufacturers was available.

What’s New?

Some of the new items at the show were reviewed in the issue of this magazine, so I will not describe them in detail, but they are still worthy of a few comments. The UK was represented by Steve and Linda Weston, who displayed the latest addition to their ‘South of the Border’ series, the Mexican Bandidos. These figures, inspired by the film ‘The Magnificent Seven’, come in packs of 16 pieces and were reasonably priced at $20.00. The eight action poses are excellent designs. There is the cocky bandit hefe chewing on a cigar stub, three ‘pillagers’ carrying, respectively, a bottle of liquor, a flaming torch and a piglet, and four combat poses, two firing pistols, one advancing with rifle, and one ‘cross-drawing’ a pistol right-handed from a holster on his left hip. My only quibble with these is that some of the pistols appear to be a bit smaller than what would have been the standard in this period, but the figures overall are excellent.

The Black Hawk Toy Soldiers Little Big Horn figures were highly visible. The tremendously realistic action poses of these figures and the superior painting made these a big seller. It will be interesting to see if future additions to this range include some of the character figures from the other phases of the battle, such as Major Reno and Captain Benteen and the Sioux war leaders Gall and Little Big Man.

Ron Barzo, from California, has become the 21st Century equivalent of Louis Marx with his large and finely-detailed boxed playsets. He displayed two fine additions to his Robin Hood Castle set: a breached wall, which looks as if it has been undermined, and a sectional watercourse that needs only a log bridge to become the site of Robin and Little John’s legendary confrontation.

The primary agent for King and Country figures at the show was the King’s X shop, which is located in the historic Menger Hotel around the corner from the Alamo Plaza. As usual, Alamo dioramas had pride of place at the King’s X table, but their latest offerings were two figures based on characters from the classic western film of 1948, Fort Apache. These connoisseur figures portray Captain Kirby York as played by John Wayne and Sergeant Quincannon as played by Dick Foran, and are truly excellent renderings.

One great feature of the Texas show is the individual dealers who offer unique non-factory conversions and buildings. Gary Beadel of Dallas, who participates in Texas Revolution re-enactments, creates adobe-looking wooden buildings, palisades and artillery mounts that are great for Alamo dioramas, but can also be used for any scenes where adobe walls are appropriate. These are slightly heavier than the cast-styrofoam pieces produced by some dealers, but they are also sturdier and less likely to acquire dents and scratches, plus are very reasonably priced ($10-$15 for a single-story building, $25 for a two-story barracks, and $10 for a cannon mount or lunette). Suffice to say I brought home a large box full!

To Paint or not to Paint

One issue that I wanted to query some of the dealers about had to do with the marketability of painted versus unpainted figures. Most of the dealers in plastics offer both types of figures but it has become apparent to me that there is a dividing line between the (generally older) collectors, who prefer the painted figures and the (generally younger) hobbyists, who like to do their own painting. Steve Weston has begun offering his Magnificent Seven figures in a painted version, and Toy Soldiers of San Diego offers three different classes of painted figure: ‘Factory paint’, which is a fairly simple mass-produced paint process, ‘Hand paint’ which is a much more detailed version and an ‘Embellished hand paint’ which produces a very high end product. It looks as if future offerings of most dealers will have a nice selection of painted figures.

It is also worth mentioning here that Master Figure Painter Compton Creel, of Little Elm, Texas (north of Dallas) has entered into an association with Brian Levy’s firm, The Collectors Showcase. In addition to his usual freelance painting, Compton will be producing connoisseur-quality figures and vehicles, including the excellent Mercedes staff car in their SS Review diorama.

Out of the Mainstream

In addition to new releases, the show had something for everyone. John Stengel of Pennsylvania, also known as The Marx Man had his usual encyclopaedic range of old original Marx figures, as well as new metal and plastic figures from other manufacturers including a great set of twelve pirate poses. Pam Brunton of Brunton’s Barracks in Arizona had a nice selection of old Britain’s, Mignot and other metals. Bob O’Connell of California displayed a great selection of his horse-drawn circus wagons and steam calliope. These excellent pieces are conceived, sculpted, solid-cast and painted by Bob. Truly a one-man show! He also showed some exciting new figures, which were inspired by his son having recently worked in Kazakhstan. These highly detailed figures show various Kazakh tribesmen and warriors over periods ranging from 200 B.C. to the Middle Ages.

Spanning the Generations

There has been much lamentation recently with regard to the aging of the collecting community, but I am happy to report that many of the show attendees brought along their children, and it was obvious that the younger generation were definitely becoming enthusiastic about the hobby. As usual, Toy Soldiers of San Diego, the show hosts, provided free packets of toy soldiers for all of the children, which is a great incentive.

At the other end of the generational spectrum, San Antonio Toy Club member Arthur Flores showed his old tin-plate and cast metal toys. He had a great selection of American Dimestore figures and many boxed sets of figures from Swedish African Engineers (SAE) designer Holger Ericson on offer. I loaded up with a dozen boxed sets of the SAE 35mm figures.

The Future

Last year’s inaugural Texas Show was a great success, and this year’s was no exception. It is a great opportunity for collecting enthusiasts from around the world to get together with colleagues from around the world. Nick VerSteeg arranged a get-together on the Friday night before the show at the Mad Dogs and Englishmen pub on the San Antonio Riverwalk, and on Saturday evening some of us met for dinner at a Mexican restaurant to talk over the events of the day. This show was no larger than last year’s but only because the venue would not allow for expansion. Nick is working hard to find a larger space, and told me that he had some good prospects for next year, although they would not have the central location that makes La Villita so ideal. Still, San Antonio is not nearly the size of Houston or Dallas, and is fairly navigable, so I am looking forward to a bigger and better show next year!

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