Battle of the Bulge

We had some snow here yesterday, so I had to take some of my Toy Soldiers of San Diego figures outside...

German Soldier

Toy German soldier by Conte Collectibles.

Army Men Explode and Lit On Fire!!

Conte Spartans

I originally got the Conte Spartan figures in red because that was the only color you could get at the time, and I sure wasn't going to wait for the other colors.

Then I got some of the gold ones, and was a little disappointed, the colors were off some of the figures. Third time's a charm I guess, I got some of the silver colored figures, and they are definitely the best. It's just a nice looking color I haven't seen since the old Marx Knights, and it seems to photograph well too.

Conte Pewter Figures

Here's a couple pictures of two of Conte Collectibles single-color pewter figures that were exclusive to the Civil War playsets. They're selling some of these along with some resin figures now.




Union Flagbearer




General Robert E. Lee

TSSD Mounted Sioux Warriors

Here are a couple shots of the mounted Sioux Warriors by Toy Soldiers of San Diego:

Stonewall's Foot Cavalry

A Marx Toys Confederate figure moves along the Blue Ridge.

Lookout Mountain

Here's a couple of Marx Civil War soldiers posing on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tennessee. I know they could be almost anywhere, you just have to take my word for it that they are on Lookout Mountain.

Charge!

Figures by Toy Soldiers of San Diego.

French Foreign Legion

French Foreign Legion figures by Conte Collectibles standing on a Classic Toy Soldiers Alamo wall with some reissue Marx Palm Trees in the background.

Jim Bowie at the Alamo

I'm kind of proud of this shot. Figures are by Conte Collectibles. The background is a piece of the Alamo from Classic Toy Soldiers.

Pirates!

I was visiting a friend and he showed me these neat but odd-looking pirate figures. I took a few quick snapshots on his front porch and posted a pic to the Yahoo Marx Playsets group. A member identified them as "copies of the original Fontanini pirates made by GPS Gavichi of Italy. GPS Gavichi were notorious for copying other companies products, apart from Fontanini they copied Marx and Elastolin." They are about 70mm in size.







The above guy with his pet monkey seems to be everybody's favorite. It's a pain trying to get the detail with the cheesy translucent plastic.

Giant Farm Woman

These are from a Marx farm playset, 1950's. I was looking through some of my old shots and was shocked by the giant farm woman.

Marx Frontiersman

Marx 45mm Frontiersman. This guy came with the early Ft. Apache and Alamo sets.

Custer's Last Stand

Some time ago, I got the Custer's Last Stand playset produced by Toy Soldiers of San Diego. TSSD is quickly becoming one of my favorite producers of toy soldiers. The quality of sculpting, poses and level of detail on the figures are fantastic. Very high quality, but at the same time, they retain an element of "toyness" where I'm not afraid to get them outside in the dirt, and wouldn't haven't a problem with a young child playing with them.

Another great thing about this playset, is you get so damn much stuff with it. The wonderfully sculpted foam hill, lots of cavalry figures and horses, and of course tons of Indians. When putting together a playset, Indians at Custer's Last Stand are like Mexicans at the Alamo: you can never have too many.

When I first got it I set it up on my dining room table. Not enough room for everything:





Last weekend I got these guys outside and got a few more shots:

Crazy Marx Army Men Poses

Inspired by the blog post The Five Worst Army of All Time [via], I took some snapshots to explain some of this to the fine folks at Metafilter.

If you've read this far, you probably already know this, but below is illustrated one of the great mysteries of my childhood, and I suspect of a few other folks.

I never knew what to do with the guy below. Weird karate dude? What's going on? I didn't have a clue.



Then there was the guy below. At least I could imagine he was flying through the air. I usually ended up hanging on some of the barb wire coils.



The light finally came on when I got the special "Battleground" edition of Plastic Figure and Playset Collector magazine:

Cunnyngham's Confederates

Here's a couple shots of the Confederate infantry set released by Cunnyngham Collectibles. I really like everything about these figures, detail, facial expressions, and poses are all great. Good color and plastic too.

Hanging Out at the Space Academy

Some space cadets at the Tom Corbett Space Academy. Marx Toys, c1953.

Alamo Mexicans

Alamo Mexicans and gatehouse by Classic Toy Soldiers.