If I am not mistaken, they are sculpted by the incomparable Holger Ericsson. The thickness of the bases suggests SAE to me, as do the paint-jobs.
The subject matter is another thing altogether.
Up until now, I had thought SAE had produced ACW, AWI and WW2 toy soldiers only. These look to me very much like FPW Prussian dragoons. Equally interestingly, the mounted figure in dark blue seems to be riding a limber horse and quite frankly, his helmet speaks to me of the British army of the last quarter of the 19th Century.
Was there an SAE Franco-Prussian War Range at some time? One day will I turn up a forgotten SAE gun and team?
Fascinating prospects.
9 comments:
What a score! Pretty cool too.
Best Regards,
Von Tschatschke
Not sure about the limber horse rider, but I think the rest are HE and look like paint jobs on the Swedish Life Guard 1953-63 troopers (30HE-9-E1,2 or 3).
Congratulations on your win Sir.
Thanks chaps.
Oh! Steve! That's a bit of a let-down..!
Oh dear, yes, sorry. This is probably why I haven't got any friends.
On the plus side, there is much still to discover and a talented ebayjaeger like yourself is just the man to do it Greg.
Was there an SAE Franco-Prussian range? Exactly what figures did Don convert/use for the FPW and 1859 battles in War Game Campaigns? That Spencer Smith 'Napoleonic' lancer looks like a late 19thC uhlan...
And of course, should I strip them or just repair/improve the paint-job..?
Yes absolutely there was a Franco Prussian war range. Above average figures too. You can see some in DF 'Wargame Campaigns'.
Also late German Empire and WW1. and Cowboys and Indians while we are in that period.
The best place to sniff around is USA ebay. Put SAE into the search and you will find a handful at any time. They seem to have been imported into the States in much greater quantities than elsewhere.
SAE also did a number of Colonial figures. SAE gets mentioned in Morschauser's and by Jack Scruby. Apparently a big NYC department store brought them in amongst others. Scruby is scathing on their theoretical mail order service.
Hi, SAE figures are marked UNION OF S AFRICA underneath the base and those designed by Ericsson carry his HE mark on the upper side of the base.
The historical coverage was extensive and so far has defied attempts to catalogue it, in addition to the ranges above there were C17th musketeers, C18th Swedish, bedouins and a massive Napoleonic range. There were also cannons and limbers, wagons etc. Many of these were illustrated in a Wallis&Wallis catalogue a few yeas back when a late South Africans collection was put up for sale by his widow.
SAE had a US importer (which I think was Continental Hobbies but would need to check, memory not what it was) and this is where most of their production went. I have interviewed collectors in the UK who told me that dealing with SAE was very difficult, as there was no direct importer and at the time there were currency exchange controls in place so making payment was a problem, when they did send off orders they were often "lost" or the figures received were not the ones ordered. So similar problems to Scuby's experience.
Most figures were imported to the US unpainted to avoid customs duties, were subsequently painted and boxed by the importer but many were also sold unpainted. In this case the paint on the horses looks original but I'm not so sure about the riders, I wouldn't lose any sleep about repainting them.
Hope this helps, best wishes, Brian
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