Ive been a long time fan of Britains toys, as my dad introduced me to them at an early age. My older sisters collected Farm, Zoo and Miniature Garden pieces with theur pocket money in the early sixties and once I was old enough to appreciate them, my dad bought me soldiers. Britains models covered such a diverse range of themes and I had tractors, tanks and cowboys. One thing I never bothered with were the Knights range, even though my dad made me a wooden fort!
Besides buying the toys, he would religiously get copies of the Britains catalogue, which was alway well produced and fun to look through, to choose what to buy next.
I bought a copy of Britains Toy Catalogues 1970-1979 recently, which reprints them well, even though I still have all the originals.
Recently, I came across one of the Medieval Siege Engines - one of two models that were made to compliment the Knights range. A catapult, missing the launcher arm and one or two parts, which I managed to bodge together. Soon after the second model, The Ballista - a heavyweight crossbow popped up and over the last two years, I have found a diecast catapult and another one of unknown make.
The Ballista really brings home the fearsome nature of these primitive weapons, when you consider the length of the bolt in relation to the figure. Its hard to imagine what effect such a device would have against a stronghold, let alone massed ranks of footsoldiers.
Britains models were too rich for my pocket money. I had the occasional set of metal figures as gifts and do still have a 25 pounder field gun but most toy soldiers were Lone Star, Timpo or Crescent.
ReplyDeleteWhen I moved to NYC in 1974 I found Swoppet style Knights that were very colourful and I bought some. I think they were Hong Kong clones of Timpo figures.
Lovely looking toys Wote and really well collected together. Britains were such a brilliant company. I adored there silver knights as a kid. Not sure if I had any of these siege engines but they do ring a bell. Could the ammo take out a decent few Knights?
ReplyDeleteThe catapult fired plastic boulders, but the action is broken on my one. The ballista uses elastic powered bolts, which would haveen very effective in carpet wars! Again mine is missing the ammo, so I substituted an arrow from a Monogram Shofun Warriors Raydeen kit
ReplyDeleteBritains were great, weren't they, Bill. The article brings back happy memories of my Swoppet American Civil War troops and Deetail WW2 soldiers who fired my imagination and gave me hours of fun.
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