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Thursday, 10 July 2008

Hinton Hunting

It’s over three years ago that I started to trawl through eBay in the hope of finding some old Hinton Hunt castings. For ages I didn’t find a single one and had just about given up on the idea of collecting a few for ‘old times sake’ when I finally stumbled upon this little group of British Riflemen which turned out to be 3 Officers and a Bugler (BN15 & BN 20). After that there seemed to be a torrent of vintage figures suddenly available and my collection grew at an alarming rate but identifying the figures has often been a bit of a problem.

During my Hinton Hunting I have come across quite a few connoisseurs and collectors of vintage wargame figures but none so prolific as The Old Metal Detector. Clive has built an impressive collection of 20mm figures from the sixties and seventies and along with it a good deal of expertise. He recently acquired an interesting batch of Hinton Hunt Figures with models covering nearly 80% of the infantry figure range. As a result The Hinton Hunter blog has been born which aims to catalogue the entire range (click on the link to take a look).

I have (almost) put the brakes on my own collection now as I have upwards of 800 castings. My intention is to re-paint the whole lot but as I only manage about 100 or so each year it’s going to take me a long time yet to turn them into proper armies. Thanks to The Old Metal Detector it will be great to be able to take a peek at those Hintons I don’t have and maybe make a wish…
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous11 July 2008 at 00:26

    (But you got in there first!)

    Question-How do you remove old paint? Especially enamels.

    (You have started me down a path-it was either Jacklex or Gilder and Mr Gilders work won!)

    Matt

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  2. Stryker11 July 2008 at 11:11

    Matt

    I strip the paint by soaking castings in a jar of bleach overnight and then scrubbing them gently under warm running water with a toothbrush – great for whitening the teeth too (only joking). Sometimes they may need a second soaking but this method removes all types of paint. I just use regular Domestos which has the advantage of being cheap and not too deadly on the hands.

    Glad that Mr Gilder has it – look forward to seeing them on your blog!

    Ian

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  3. Anonymous11 July 2008 at 17:46

    Thanks for posting the link to The Hinton Hunter blog Ian. Enjoyed browsing through it. Did you see Peter Gilders HH French Dragoons on the site? That man could certainly paint....those early editions of Wargames Illustrated featured his early Hinchliffe/Foremost collection, pre Connoisseur , and they were amazing. Anyway, thanks again for such an inspiring blog.

    Lee.

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  4. Stryker11 July 2008 at 19:46

    Lee

    Yes, those Gilder HH cavalry are really something. It was pictures of his figures in "Miniature Warfare" that got me into proper wargaming back in the late 60's.

    Ian

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  5. Vintage Wargaming14 July 2008 at 17:30

    Thanks for mentioning the Hinton Hunter blog. Hoping to have all the Napoleonic foot figures (infantry and artillery) up by tomnight (or early tomorrow morning)

    ReplyDelete