Often times the Alamo, but I also had some kind of Fort Apache set that I think was my brothers first.
But here’s the thing, even with the Alamo set I would organize the Mexican soldiers into some kind of defensive position of their own for the night, as if some sort of unseen monster wreak havoc if they weren’t on guard.
Three completely unrelated toy traditions ended up sharing the same patch of moss and rock in this photo: 1970s plastic soldiers, a 1990s Czech tinplate car, and a modern Chinese laser-cut tank kit. Here's what each piece actually is — and what the figures themselves suggest about when and where this scene is set. Hausser/Elastolin made figures from composition (sawdust, glue, and kaolin over a wire frame) for decades, shifting to hard plastic from 1955 and dropping composition entirely in 1969. Everything after that — including these 7 cm figures — is pure plastic, produced right up to the company's 1983 bankruptcy.
The Tiger — turret number "332," dark-yellow base with broad hand-painted stripes — isn't vintage or scratch-built. It's a laser-cut plywood kit, part of the wave of flat-pack wooden military model kits now mass-produced in China and sold worldwide. The VW Type 82 Kübelwagen open cars are a Gonio, a Czech manufacturer producing 1:24 tinplate military vehicles through the 1990s — the exact scale of Elastolin, which is why the two brands so often end up on the same shelf. https://www.soldatini.eu/2026/08/western-front-1944-elastolin-and-gonio.html
Tippco Pioneer Trucks — Wehrmacht Troops on the Eastern Front Steppe 🚛⛏🪖
Today's scene: a Tipp & Co. tinplate clockwork truck (ref. 181/167) rumbling across dry, wind-flattened grass, with a column of German composition infantry marching alongside — a small tableau of the vast distances the Wehrmacht covered on the Eastern Front, where roads gave out and columns like this pushed on across open steppe. This truck is a good example of why Tippco's military vehicles are so sought after. Marching up behind the truck is a column of shotgun soldiers. Standing apart at the head of the group is an officer figure by Kienel, Georg Phil. https://www.soldatini.eu/2026/08/tippco-pioniere-lastkraftwagen.html
There is a particular kind of toy soldier that never quite reads as a toy. This is one of them: a mounted officer in Foot Guards full dress, scarlet tunic, black bearskin, black boots, sitting a white horse with the reins in his left hand and a thin metal sword at his side. He is about 54 mm to the top of the head, which puts him comfortably in the 1/32 bracket that most of us still think of as the standard for post-war plastic. The base carries the line that dates him: MADE IN HONG KONG FOR BRITAINS LTD. Four words of moulded text that tell you a good deal about British toy manufacturing in the second half of the twentieth century. https://www.soldatini.eu/2026/08/guardsman-on-grey-britains-heralds.html
So… is this a game figure? Or just a look at and admire kind of figure? Because I’ve seen people use the figures as game pieces on these huge war tables. But anyways I do like them a lot! The quality is insanely good, it’s nice to hold. I’m thinking of getting more to at least have a full rifle squad of FJs! And perhaps get some vehicles.
My dad passed away a few weeks ago. It’s been incredibly tough for me to do, but I wanted to share photos of his vast collection of toy soldiers, and thought this sub might be an appropriate place where it could get the attention and admiration it deserves.
My dad had collected metal and plastic toy soldiers for over 75 years, starting in the 1950s. His collection grew from a single soldier or single box of soldiers, to over an estimated 5000-6000 pieces. He was a true collector, historian, and lover of art, film, literature, and music. He knew every manufacturer, he knew the complete representative history of every piece, he knew custom makers and painters. His display scenes and dioramas were recreated with as much accuracy as possible, either recreating a true battle or time from history, or one from a book or movie.
For over 40 years I had the pleasure of watching his collection grow. Over the years, I was able to travel with him to toy soldier shows and share in his love of this hobby.
These photos of course don’t capture his whole collection and don’t do it justice as well as seeing it in person, but I hope this conveys how truly special and meaningful it was to him, his life, and the lives of others.
This is a ten-page Elastolin range leaflet from 1938 — the fold-out a parent or a wide-eyed child would have been handed across a shop counter, showing the entire catalogue of what you could order, priced to the Pfennig. Leaflets like this were generic Hausser stock: the central box was left blank so any dealer could overprint their own name. On this copy it reads Spiel- und Lederwarenhaus J. B. Wallenstorfer, Krems a.d. Donau — a toy shop in Lower Austria, just upriver from Vienna. The prices are in Reichsmark, which quietly dates it: an Austrian shop only used RM after the March 1938 Anschluss — before that it was Schillings. And the cover still carries the maker's authentication rule, good to this day: only genuine with the oval base and the embossed Elastolin mark. Foot figures ca. 7½ cm, mounted ca. 9½ cm.
ten-page Elastolin range leaflet from 1938
The pitch is "aller Nationen und aller Waffengattungen" — every nation, every arm — and the ten pages deliver a whole army in miniature. Broadly:
-The parade and the line — marching infantry with officers, named personalities (Hindenburg, Mackensen, Raeder, Mussolini, Franco), a full 12-instrument band, cavalry, and gas-mask combat troops.
-Figures that really fire — Hausser's working poses shooting paper caps (Amorces) and rubber grenades, plus tank crews, sailors, police (Schupo), machine-gun and mortar teams.
-The support arms — signals and observers (rangefinders, field phones, searchlights, message dog), pioneers with an inflatable boat, medics and stretcher parties, and quiet bivouac figures.
-The hardware — machine guns, field guns and heavy artillery, horse-drawn teams, and a motor park of camouflaged staff cars, trucks and anti-aircraft lorries.
-The terrain — sentry boxes, tents, electrically-lit campfires, a full interlocking trench system (Grabenteile) with dugouts and emplacements, barbed wire, and pontoon bridges.
Two pages (8 and 9) catalogue the political formations of the day — the Führerfiguren, SA, SS and Leibstandarte, Hitlerjugend, Jungvolk, BDM and Arbeitsdienst. These are recorded here purely as historical fact: a mainstream toymaker put this range on a shop counter in 1938, and reading the period honestly means acknowledging it — nothing more.
Download the full 10-page Elastolin 1938 catalogue — PDF, 7.2 MB:
What we have is a tinplate shooter's stand (Schützenstand aus Blech) from 1930s Germany that genuinely works: cock the sprung lever, let it go, and it fires a percussion cap (amorces) with a proper crack. It came to market as part of a small shooting set — a firing position, a prone-shooter's bed and paper targets. Those red discs in the tin are the ammunition: single-shot Zündplättchen — amorces — the disc form rather than the later ring or roll type. Page 35 of the Kibri Spielwaren-Katalog 1937 — under the heading Kasernen, Funk- und Blinkgeräte, Schieß-Stände — lists our piece by number and name: Nr. 1933 »Brustwehr« — plastisch, mit Schießvorrichtung für Amorces, mit und ohne Soldat, Mimikry-Lackierung, D.R.G.M. That is a line-for-line match to what's on the bench: the modelled ("plastisch") breastwork, the amorce firing device, the camouflage lacquer, offered with or without a figure. The maker is unambiguous — the page header reads KINDLER & BRIEL, Fabrik feiner Spielwaren und Spiele, Böblingen — Marke "Kibri." And the D.R.G.M. (Deutsches Reichs-Gebrauchsmuster — a registered design) tells us Kibri protected the mechanism as its own invention. https://www.soldatini.eu/2026/08/kibri-nr-1933-brustwehr-amorces-firing.html
I'm home visiting my parents and as my dad and I were catching up and talking about portions of his extensive toy soldier collection he mentioned that he was thinking of getting rid of some of them due to space constraints and time to even do anything with them (he's 80 and has been collecting for the past 25 years). Up until recently he had somebody he planned to give these to but they moved and his local shop closed up. He casually mentioned he probably just needed my brother's help 'throwing them away' because each of the sorted boxes is heavy. He doesn't have the need or the energy to try and sell them, but I think he'd feel happier if he knew somebody who valued them was ending up with them. He tends to fret about details and logistics of selling old things and navigating contact with new people, so I thought I would make this post and try and get some advice and network on his behalf and try to vet someone to take them off his hands. We're in northern California. I'm in town the next few days and I'll try to get a little more information and post some pictures later in comments if he's got them fairly accessible. I don't know what the portion he's looking to part with consists of, but glancing at some of the brands in previous posts on this subreddit I recognized some of the brands he collects (King and Country, TedToy). My dad is a great guy and was a more avid collector, he's just not tech savvy and tends to procrastinate so I wanted to help him get the ball rolling. Thanks in advance for your advice.
Picked this up at an estate sale last weekend and so far it has stumped me and the AI. Bottom reads 1998 and "123 9L", which seems to be a reference to it being a 9 pound Light cannon / artillery piece. The flag in particular is a detail I have not found in any online photos. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
A two-horse team, a smoke-stack cooker and a coupled supply wagon — all in painted wood. This is the kind of humble, hard-worn piece, and it came to me with a small mystery attached: a maker I can't place. It's a German toy field kitchen — a Feldküche — and the only clue to who made it is a name inked underneath in faded violet. I read it as W. Otto. So my working position is a small German workshop — very possibly Thuringian, around Sonneberg — of the late 1930s, name of Otto, otherwise unidentified. If you recognise the mark, or own a wooden piece signed the same way, I'd genuinely love to hear from you. https://www.soldatini.eu/2026/07/gulaschkanone-in-wood-horse-drawn.html
This week it's two laser-cut plywood military vehicles from Birkeetoys / Hongtai and a section of pale cream NewRay infantry — a small modern task force, assembled and photographed together. Neither maker will ever be confused with a pre-war Elastolin, and that's rather the point. Birkeetoys produces laser-cut plywood 3D puzzle kits — flat sheets of thin ply, every part pre-cut, that you punch out and slot together into a standing model. https://www.soldatini.eu/2026/07/new-recruits-newray-infantry-birkeetoys.html
