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Saturday, 1 July 2017

New old recruits

I recently trawled through my Hinton Hunt lead pile and checked and catalogued every figure as my old spreadsheet was way out of date. This threw up some interesting statistics (interesting in a nerdy kind of way) namely: of my infantry only 29% are vintage castings (figures produced in the UK by Marcus Hinton) the rest being mostly DK's, Clayton (the figures produced in the US by David Clayton) and some reproductions (unofficial figures from various sources), of my cavalry 48% are vintage castings.

8 x FN/75 Young Guard Voltigeur (charging), 4 x FN/77 Young Guard Voltigeur (running at the trail)

Of course these are figures yet to see a paintbrush (there are 1,284) whereas the percentage of vintage figures amongst my painted units is much higher. In total though I only have 372 vintage castings left to paint and it occurred to me that given the title of this blog these are the ones I should be concentrating on getting battle ready.

6 x FN/60 Empresses Dragoons (mounted charging)

So I was very pleased to receive a small package of bonafide vintage figures last week as this is a rare event these days. In the package were 12 x Young Guard Voltigeurs, 6 x one-piece Empress Dragoons and 24 French line fusiliers.

22 x FN/5 Fusilier (charging), 1 x FN/1 Officer (charging), 1 x FN/4 Colour Bearer (charging)

I’ve had some very nice Clayton Young Guard figures for years now so it’s great to finally have a full unit, I’m so excited that I’ve even commissioned a special little something for them (more on that later). The Empress Dragoons will be combined with my Horse Grenadier squadron to give me a full 12 figure guard heavy unit (the Polish lancers will be joined by the Eclaireurs to form a light one). The fusiliers will join the solid ranks of the workaday French line regiments.

Now some focus is required to get painting.
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13 comments:

  1. Wellington Man1 July 2017 at 10:58

    And wee beauties they are too Ian, every single one! Congratulations.

    I'm committed to slogging through the enormous pile of DKs I somewhat rashly purchased at the beginning of my project, but I'll get to the good stuff eventually!

    WM

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  2. Stryker1 July 2017 at 11:01

    WM - all your stuff is good stuff once it has left your paintbrush!

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  3. WSTKS-FM Worldwide1 July 2017 at 13:12

    Can't wait to see your Young Guard when they after finished. It is always such fun perusing your painted figures, vintage castings, or not.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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  4. Stryker1 July 2017 at 13:36

    Thanks Stokes - to be honest there's not much difference between vintage and most other castings but of course I have to be a HH snob don't I?

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  5. lewisgunner1 July 2017 at 16:34

    Provenance is everything dear boy!

    There is, of course another view which is that its not a real Hinton until you have carved a few large lumps of lead off it.
    The advantage of some of the later recasts is that hopefully whoever did them cleaned up the figure first, or at least started with a clean one.
    R

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  6. Purple1 July 2017 at 19:45

    I love your blog! It however always ends up with me looking on eBay for figures!

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  7. Stryker1 July 2017 at 20:32

    Roy - yes it's funny how at age 14 I was depressed to receive figures form Hinton Hunt covered in flash and now it's a joy!

    Purp - ah, that's the slippery slope...

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  8. Captain Nolan2 July 2017 at 10:13

    Excellent find. The Empress Dragoons are a wonderful squadron to add. I look forward to seeing them with uniforms on arrayed for battle! Do you expect to add Cavalry and artillery to your unit histories posts?

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  9. Stryker2 July 2017 at 10:59

    Nolan - I will add the cavalry eventually but this will be a bit tricky as the units have had several incarnations. Originally they were in 3 squadron 18 figure units so I'll probably start at the point they become 12 figure units. The artillery probably won't get a mention.

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  10. Lee2 July 2017 at 11:30

    Hi Ian, "I only have 372 vintage castings left to paint" made me laugh! How on Earth do you keep finding them after all these years? Given that they still continue to turn up HH's production output must have been vast.

    Keep on slogging away, and here's hoping that these gems continue to find their way to you:)

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  11. Stryker2 July 2017 at 14:44

    Hi Lee - actually yes that does sound a bit boastful! I was meaning the number of vintage in proportion to the total number of figures I have. Most of my vintage castings have been in my possession for at least six years. It's getting quite hard to find the real thing now and buying from eBay is increasingly risky as some reproductions are very good. That said clearly there are still a lot of vintage figures out there and HH production must have been quite high but my analysis suggests that for every vintage figure there are at least 2 others!

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  12. Anonymous6 July 2017 at 08:20

    Looking forward to seeing the guard on parade, should look splendid.

    Paul

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  13. Stryker6 July 2017 at 11:50

    Thanks Paul - I hope I can find time to start on them soon!

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