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Saturday 13 April 2013

Bill Lamming's lost range - Seven Years War



Vintage 20mil in their history of Lamming Miniatures stated:

Lamming’s first 20mm range covered the Seven Years War. It was launched early in 1968 and included British, French, Austrian and Prussian troops. The details we have of the range are sketchy but it appears that it included all arms, some artillery pieces and a fairly wide variety of troop types including a mounted British colonel. A photo in Wargamer’s Newsletter shows a gun and four-man artillery crew plus an officer. Infantry figures sold at one shilling (5p) and cavalry for 2/6d (12 p).

By 1970, when Lamming launched his 20mm Napoleonic range, the Seven Years War range seems to have been dropped. Adverts for The Northern Garrison in 1970s issues of Scale Models mention only the Napoleonics and in an article on gaming the Jacobite Rebellion that appeared in Miniature Warfare in January 1972 author Stuart Reid states "Lamming are no longer producing Seven years War figures".

I was very pleased at the time of my earlier post to have found a few figures from this range. Now, following a heads up from Doug of Unfashionably Shiny, I have rather more progress to report.

A couple of days before it was due to take place, Doug let me know of an auction taking place in Driffield on 23rd March 2013. This was described as follows:

To include THE LAMMING COLLECTION - the promotional display collection of painted die-cast scale models & military figures of Lamming Miniatures, Hull, on instructions from Mr W H Lamming who has retired

Lot 352 was described as Lamming, Seven Year War painted diecast figures, approximately one hundred and ninety figures, etc, including foot soldiers from three different regiments, cavalry, skirmishers, three gun crews and cannons, etc (190)

I wasn't able to attend or make a remote bid, but on checking after the sale and finding they were unsold, I bought this lot sight unseen for the reserve price, and on Monday was able to pick them up. I was very glad to find that they were what I had hoped for, as this had been a risk, despite the provenance.

I will post pictures of the various figures on The Old Metal Detector in due course, in what should be the most detailed description of this range yet available.

Meanwhile, the photo at the top of this post shows the mounted British Colonel mentioned in the Vintage20mil description. Below are some further pictures of some of these figures. They are extremely well painted for the time and the cavalry have very nice pin swords - the curved light cavalry sabres are particularly fine. There are one or two figures from other manufacturers. If anyone can help with identifying troop types that would be helpful - SYW is not one of my main periods.











13 comments:

  1. Hi Clive
    Know we know who made that nice one piece Hussar

    Paul

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  2. What a windfall! And very pretty the figures are too. Looking forward to learning more about the range at a future date.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes Schwartz

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  4. Sorry about deleting the first draft of this comment - I needed to tidy it up a bit.

    Paul, actually the one piece hussar is one I suspect might be by another manufacturer - I always thought it might be Garrison but Rob Young says not. It does confirm your marching grenadier is Lamming (though I must admit I like the advancing one a little bit more). Also there seem to be two sizes - the British figures are smaller (20mm) while the Prussians and French or Austrians, plus all the kneeling skirmishers and the Native Americans are more S Range size. At first I thought the larger ones again were another manufacturer but I looked again at some unpainted examples I already had of a few of these figures and they are clearly Lamming as well. I also already had an American frontiersman type in hunting shirt which now looks like it must be Lamming (as I'd suspected). They certainly fit well with S Range SYW figures. My main interest for them at the moment is the '45, for which I hope they will provide my cavalry and a couple of infantry regiments. The S Range Jacobite Rebellion figures have a bit of a chunkier feel so I'll need to check how they fit in, but should be o.k. if not used in the same units.

    Clive

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  5. Great looking figures!
    Phil.

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  6. I'm sure that one piece hussar appears in Charles Grant's Napoleonic Wargaming in one of the colour plates showing Peter Gilder's troops.

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  7. Yes Ben - there have been a few sightings but no definitive identification. I've had a couple of these figures for a while but don't know what they are yet.

    The advancing French or Austrian guys (seventh picture down) are Garrison, I'm fairly sure.

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  8. Those are indeed very nice, although i fear there has been a misunderstanding - you were supposed to be collecting them for me Clive.....

    At first sight i'd have said that the marching grenadiers and horse grenadiers were Garrison, but they are subtly different.

    And the blokes in white are Austrians, surely?

    I'm surprised at how many of these vintage ranges included FIW figures, when i started trying to game it back in the 80s the only sources were Minifigs (a massive 2 figures IIRC) and Rafm from Canada.

    I'll be over shortly....

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  9. Lovely to see them as the maker intended...and the gloss finish just 'makes' them!

    Hugh

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  10. The one piece hussar really does look like the Garrison OPC Roman cavalryman. I wonder if Bill Lamming made a conversion of that figure?

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  11. the british light infantry look like a conversion from the airfix ww1 german infantry. Perhaps the conversion was done one then home cast perhaps? Just a thought.

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  12. I can see what you mean but I've had a close look and I didn't think that's right. The kneeling firing pose is a typical Lamming one - see also the Prussian Jagers, the Chasseurs de Fisher, and particularly the lovely dismounted Napoleonic hussar.

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