Wednesday 4 June 2008

Austrian ID Parade

Over the last few days I have been lucky enough to receive over 100 Hinton Hunt castings produced by David Clayton in the USA (thanks Clive). Clayton acquired the Hinton Hunt moulds back in the early 90’s and was producing and selling the figures up until a few years ago.

My stated aim at the start of this project was that I was going to build my armies using only vintage figures but the reality of the situation is that I am going to have to use some of the later castings to complete my units. There seem to be a reasonable number of vintage British and French figures around but some types are just too rare for me to stand a chance of building whole 24 figure units. The Austrians are a case in point – I have 16 or so vintage figures but I had given up hope of finding any more to make up a full unit. I now have enough extra charging figures to make up the ranks.

The picture shows two each of AN21 Hungarian Officer Charging and AN24 Hungarian Musketeer Charging. The painted figures are vintage ones and the unpainted ones next to them are Clayton castings. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the figures. The Clayton officer is almost identical to the vintage one whilst the musketeer, apart from being a slightly lighter metal, only differs in that the base is square without the normal rounded corners. What really surprised me is that the USA versions both have the full Hinton Hunt figure codes marked under their bases. I had previously thought that Clayton’s figures had no codes and often used this as a way to determine if a figure was vintage or not – so it’s back to the drawing board on that one.

Ironically of course, the Clayton figures themselves are now becoming rarities. He told me he sold the moulds to a mysterious (my word not his) Canadian bloke who apparently has plans to market the figures again. For the full Hinton Hunt story check out the link to Harry Pearson's superb Vintage20mil site.

7 comments:

rpardo said...

Hi
Thanks for the info about Harry Pearson's site. Keep your good work!
Rafa

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Very interesting blog! I also recall these figures from the originals and its great to see them still in use. Did you ever visit John Tunstills shop 'Soldiers' in Lambeth, London back in the Seventies? Thats what got it started for me! First thing that struck me on your site was the shot of E. Woodwood (sp?) on the 'Battleground' set with Peter Gilders wonderful figures and terrain. Thanks for the nostalgia, I'll bookmark this site and watch those Hinton Hunts spring back to life again.

Keep it up,

Lee.

Anonymous said...

Hello Stryker,
Your Project has realy interested
me. I am now doing one myself , except i am using greenwood & ball,rose and tradition figures.But rest assured if the hinton hunt figures do come back on to the market, they will have a few units too.
Regards Paul

Stryker said...

Hi Lee
Thanks for your comments. I never made it to Tunstill's shop but I did get to the Hinton hunt shop in Camden Passage in the mid 70's. It was slightly disappointing as they only stocked the 54mm figures.
That picture of Callan on Harry's site featured in the May 1970 issue of Miniature Warfare magazine. The fact that Callan played with toy soldiers gave nerdy kids like me a bit of credibility at school at the time!
Ian

Stryker said...

Hi Paul
I never had any Greenwood & Ball figures but I remember the ads for them at the time. Good luck with the project!
Ian

Anonymous said...

Hi Iain,

Apologies if I got slightly confused between sites in my earlier post! I had been reading both this and Harrys fine site..think I was overcome by model soldier nostalgia! It was watching 'Callan' back in the seventies as a teenager that inspired me to start wargaming.

Just been reading right back to the start of your blog, got to say I enjoyed it very much. Some nice painting there too, love those carabiniers.

Lee.

Stryker said...

Hi Lee
Thanks very much for your kind comments. If you enjoyed those Carabiniers I hope you will like the Scots Grey's when they finally appear (soon!).
Ian