My Old Dutch

Another ebay purchase and a surprise twice over - first in the form of a second chance offer to buy them, and second  to discover some of the figures weren't metal. I'm not sure how I feel about this as it wasn't referred to anywhere in the description. At first (and in an earlier version of this post) my initial thought when I saw the photograph for the first time was that they were Springwood Plastics, with the exception of the mounted officer and pioneer, who are S Range.

However Fire at Will, who has several thousand Springwood Plastics figures humself, has pointed out that they are actually something even rarer to see in this quantity, and are in fact by the French company SEGOM. So the twist in the tail/tale is that they are now a surprise three times over and they look an even better purchase than before. In one sense it is the quality of the figure rather than their maker that matters, but it is always nice to have something new in the collection.

An earlier post here on Vintage Wargaming has the Rene North "Paint YOur Own" cards with uniform information for this unit.

(I've just realised I've used the same heading for this as a recent post on the Hinton Hunt Vintage Wargames Figures blog - sorry Ian - so I have changed it0

Mystery solved

Paul RH over on another forum after some internet sleuthing has identified these as Framburg recognition models (they seem to lack the wheels that might have meant they were the later Dale Company versions).

The information on Framburg is here.

Thanks to all who have helped with this, particularly Chris, Alan and of course Paul.

Tanks for the Memory...

Patrick has sent me these three pictures of two metal tank models. They are approximately 3 inches by 6 inches, and seem to be an M3 Lee and M4 Sherman 105mm.

(It has now been persuasively suggested to me elsewhere that the Sherman is not the 105 mm version but the T6 Medium Tank, i.e. the Sherman prototype. The photograph below is of the example built at Aberdeen and I think confirms this identification.) There seems little point in having identification models of the prototype much beyond 1942 when the production models were introduced. As the lee was also introduced in 1941, and there are clear similarities between the two models (the running gear), perhaps these could even have been models used as part of the prototyping process?

Patrick (and I) would be very interested in and grateful for any information on their likely manufacturer and date of production.

Something Old School - Grant on Minden

The Wargamers Yearbook 1966/7 contains this lengthy (ish) article by Charles Grant on a refight of Minden, which should be of interest to devotees of The War Game/Charge way of doing things.

I haven't been able to check but I think the "Visitor" will have been Brigadier Peter Young and his"local chief of staff" the young CS Grant.

I've always felt that, due to the sources I have available for Vintage Wargaming, Charles Grant is under represented on this blog and I'm glad to have the opportunity to redress the balance a little.

Wargamers Yearbook 1966 - Morschauser on Gridded Wargames

Quite a slight article but I hadn't seen it before, so posted here for interest.