little figurines

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been working with my uncle, renovating this house for the new owners. It was purchased a few weeks ago from an old decrepit lady, in her 80s. Nice lady, but very batty. Had over a million dollars (an appraiser came in) worth of stuff laying around in a pigsty. Her kid was kinda weird too.

anyway, we were told to trash everything. The new owners don’t want to touch anything of hers. Ooh wait, the valuable stuff, she took with her. I didn’t mean to imply that we were told to trash a million dollars worht of antiques.

So I was cleaning a rotted cabinet out. It was filled with old books (well, they used to be books- they were literally crawling with bookworms), and at the bottom of a stack of old books was a crubly box.

it was filled with tissue-paper wrapped figurines. Little fellas, only about two or three inches high. They appeared to be made out of pewter, but were all painted. They were mainly soldiers of some kind- looked like French Foreign Legion, and Doughboys, and Prussian soldiers, and some Scots in kilts. Most of them had a movable gun arm, so the soldier could go from attention to charging with the bayonet.

When I first found them, I thought it was a renaissance faire set. Some beautiful jousting figures, on horseback. And some clowns (not barnum & baily clowns, more like the tragic opera clown whose name it is too early to remember).

There were also a few cars, a tank, and some old-fashioned machine guns (the kind you had to lug like a trailer behind a jeep). The tires were rubber and still intact.

The people all had a little rectangular stand soldered onto their feet.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? They magazines on top of the books were from the 60’s, so I think the toys were put away then.
jb

2

Your first step to fame and riches is to get a hammer and smash all the mimes. Do it now.

3

what the hell does everybody have against mimes? anyone and everyone, your neighbors, relatives, or coworkers , could be a mime. In fact, some members of this board could very well be mimes.

We are like you! If you prick us, do we not pretend to bleed?

jb
p.s.-geez, this is enough to drive a man to drink heavily from an invisible bottle.

4

They sound like a very fancy set of toy soldiers, although the Pagliacci figures are throwin’ me.

You should probably take them to an antique dealer, have him look 'em up in one of his big books.

There’s no chance they’re chessmen, is there? (The infamous Anticlerical set! The clowns are the bishops!)

5

the Whore of Babylon figure DID look like a Queen

6

Do they look anything like this?

It’s very hard to tell without being able to see them, but they sound like Britains figures. IIRC, Britains made a dazzling variety of soldiers, knights and other figures. If you can’t find a reputable dealer to show them to, there are a number of Toy Soldier Identification and Price Guides available, like this one. Check your local library in the reference section.

7

aseymayo, you are FANTASTIC!!
jb

8

[blush] Aw, shucks, jb - now I’ll be smiling the rest of the day!