Scruby Miniatures - Ten Years Old

I thought this was interesting as an early (1966) potted history of the first ten years of Scruby Miniatures, by Jack Scruby himself, published in Table Top Talk in November that year. Interesting to see the name Bob Bard bracketed with Morschauser and Featherstone - some of the wargaming illustrations from his book Making and Collecting Military Miniatures are available elsewhere on this blog - here.

Helpful Hints from Jack Scruby, 1962

Top Tips from Jack Scruby, from 1962, with a rather nice signed photo.

These are taken from a 1962 catalogue. Apologies for the quality of the scans - if they are printed on thin paper there is always a dilemma about whether to sharpen the image or not, as this can increase the "show through" from the other side. I hope they are legible.

By request #4: Jack Scruby Letter from America Miniature Warfare Vol 1 no 3 April 1968

Scruby Figures: 30mm American Civil War

Scruby Figures

Jack Scruby was a giant of US wargaming and while known in the UK through the link up with Don Featherstone and Wargamer's Newsletter, his figures didn't cross the pond to any great extent. It is particularly noticeable that images of Scruby figures on the web are few and far between (although the figures themselves are available through Mike Taber at Historifigs)

A while ago I tried to redress this a little over on the Old Metal Detector, in part with pictures of the 30mm Napoleonics from John C Candler's Miniature Wargames du temps de Napoleon. I am grateful to Bill who has sent me a large collection of photographs of figures from a variety of the Scruby ranges. I have posted a slideshow of 25mm Napoleonic types over on The Old Metal Detector and below a similar one of figures from the 30mm Napoleonic range.

Further pictures of the 30mm ACW line will follow in due course.

A 50th anniversary - War Games Digest British Issue September 1960 - My War Games Table and Figures, by Lionel Tarr

A real curiosity is this copy of the British Edition of War Games Digest, edited by Don Featherstone and Tony Bath, from September 1960. A short lived interlude saw a British Edition of the War Games Digest published in March and September, interspersing the US edition produced by Jack Scruby in June and December. This experiment was short lived and ended in tears two years later with a disagreement over editorial policy. This was followed by Jack Scruby launching Table Top Talk, and Don Featherstione starting Wargamers Newsletter,later that year (1962)- so it really was a moment of creative differences..

The Courier's Timeline of the Historical Miniatures Wargaming Hobby has links to Don's article and the editor's exchange on the subject.

I think this must be the second of the British Editions and I will probably post more of the content in the coming months.

As a start, here is Lionel Tarr's article on his war games table and figures for his famous Stalingrad campaign.

I apologise if the scans are difficult to read. As this is 50 year old roneod typescript this is not too surprising. I have run them through the high pass sharpen on paint shop, but it seemed to me it would be of interest to see the article in its original form. The alternative would be to scan for optical character recognition to transcribe the article into text. This would be quite time consuming so for the moment I am following plan A.

A Typical Day at Scruby Miniatures, from Table Top Talk September 1965

A burst of activity over at the Old Metal Detector posting pictures of Scruby figures has made me think it might be intersting to post this article from Jack Scruby's Table Top Talk from September 1965.

The Old Metal Detector posts can be found here.

Scruby Miniatures pictures from John C Candler's Miniature Warfare du temps de Napoleon

A little burst of energy has seen me posting the photographs I have of Scruby Miniatures figures over on the Old Metal Detector blog here.

The black and white pictures are of the 30mm Napoleonics range; the colour photos are from a 1981 Ultimate Miniatures catalogue.

It is very difficult to find any images of Scruby figures on the internet, so hopefully posting these will be of some use.

Scruby Convertables anyone?

This advert for Scruby 20mm "convertables" appeared in Table Top Talk for April-May 1963.

I've always found it very difficult to find pictures of Scruby figures, either on line or in print (apart from in John C Candler's Du Temps De Napoleon rules), and they seem very rare this side of the pond.



The figures in this battalion of Russian Grenadiers I assune to be Scruby 25mms, and I don't know if there were 25mm"convertables" - I certainly can't find them currently in production on Mike Taber's Historifigs site. The quality of casting on the figures when I got them leads me to believe they are unlikely to be originals. They came open handed with a separate musket attached to the base, but some of these did not survive too well so this unit is armed with all the odds and ends in the spares box. The officer in bicorne is defnitely a Scruby figure, though I'm not sure which one, and definitely not intended to be a Russian. Another open handed figure, I added his sword.

There are also a small number of Minifigs 20mm figures in this unit, including the second officer. They form the front line in the first picture.

Whatever they are, they have turned out nice and they are something different.

Ancient Scruby: 54mm wargaming

Back in the day when he was still John and not Jack (at least for formal occasions) these pictures show Jack Scruby wargaming with 54mm figures a la H G Wells, using a gridded playing surface.

These pictures are from Making and Collecting Military Miniatures, a book by Bob Bard and published in the States in 1957. I am indebted to Doug from Unfashionably Shiny for drawing this book to my attention. One chapter considers wargaming at the time in the United States, including rules, on Wellsian lines.

The Story of War Game Digest, by Jack Scruby Fall 1971

The Fog of War

I am indebted to Mike Taber of Historifigs, purveyor of all things Scruby, for an agreement to posting some material from old Jack Scruby publications, including Table Top Talk and Wargamer's Digest. I currently have access to considerably less of this material that that from Miniature Warfare or from Wargamer's Newsletter, so the site will not be awash with it, but I hope to be able to provide an interesting representative sample.

To start with I have chosen this article from Table Top Talk July 1965, illustrated by a picture from The War Game Digest for Fall 1971.I can't remember ever seeing another article in the wargaming press on this topic...