I have a toy collection of soldiers and nurses that are representing figures from both World War 1 and World War 2. They were given to me along with all the other things by John and Iva Horton. Their children were the same age as my parents and they did lose one of their sons in WW 2.
From my research the metal pieces are representing WW 1. The nurse and the wounded soldier are also from that group. I have one soldier that is on a stretcher.
Here is an example of the same toy, one done in a metal form and behind them is one that is made of a paper mache-like material. I am thinking that the helmets in the foreground toy soldiers are WW 1 but I am not an authority on this.
This is a toy in very bad shape. Can you see the pigeons that he is handling? I think that I have a helmet that does fit this guy. Can you imagine using pigeons to send messages.
The cannon has rubber like material for it's wheels and the rest of it is made from metal. The guy in front is a first WW soldier.
As a foolish college kid, I needed a fast sculpture for a class and I used a few of these guys in the composition. I actually glued them down to the sculpture, bad idea I know, and the sculpture along with many others were left in an open classroom for many weeks. The flag and grass was painted by me to make it look better. I know now one isn't suppose to do that to antiques.
The whole collection is 40 or more pieces. I really wanted to take time to photograph and catalog each one but that didn't happen this winter. I actually didn't get the posting done until spring but I did want to share some of them. My collection is in very bad shape. I know that they are not of great value because of that, but as a piece of history they are museum pieces. Thanks for stopping by.........
PS I did a little research and did find one company Manoil that made one kind of my soldiers. I will be looking for more later.
8 comments:
I think they are wonderful! Looking at those pigeons reminds me of how much things have changed. Very interesting and nostalgic.
Fascinating to see these pieces. Thank you so much for sharing.
These are so wonderful! I'm afraid my boys destroyed all their toy soldiers by shooting them with BB's
I'm curious about the price such a collection would fetch. Marvelous!
I think they are very cool....they probably are worth a lot more than you think, even if they aren't in perfect condition..because there can't be a lot of them left anymore.
Awesome grup of toys! I wonder if they have "lead" in them LOL kids back in the day before the nanny state. The pigeons are from WW! And were used duing the "lost brigade" the life saving hero pigeon that saved those boys from friendly fire was mounted in the US Army museum. Very cool antiques!
A wonderful collection of soldiers.
I'd say there are not that many of those still around.
What a great collection of little toys from your child hood. My son is in the Army and I will try to get him to look at your toys! Thanks for sharing.
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