J.F.Schreiber 990 - Türkisches Heer, Infanterie und Freiwillige

Hello,

today I'm showing you eight 9,5cm tall Turkish infantrymen that originally came from printing sheet no.990 by J.F. Schreiber.

Unfortunately, the figures are not in good condition. Some are badly faded, some have water damage, and the bayonets are broken. If they hadn't been glued to fiberboard and cut out, they probably wouldn't have survived. They are hard-used historical toys that appear to have been repaired several times, illustrating that with this figures were actually played with.

Best regards, 

Andreas

American Civil War - ABC

Hello,

Today I'm showing you some more figures from the Czechoslovakian ABC Magazine.

This time they are 40mm scale soldiers from the American Civil War. The figures are double-sided and were drawn (if I translated correctly) by Premysl Kubela. They were published in 1993 or 1994.

Best regards,

Andreas

Imagerie Quantin Paris - German Army

Hello,

today I'm showing you a sheet from the Imagerie Quantin in Paris. It doesn't quite fall into the "paper soldiers" category, meaning the figures weren't intended to be cut out and displayed. Rather, it's an example from the world of "picture sheets."

However, since I stumbled across this print for a song—and the manufacturer even made it into Edward Ryan's book "Paper Soldiers"—I'm presenting it here.

The figures, about 7 cm tall, depict early German field-gray uniforms from World War I. The print can therefore likely be dated to between 1914 and 1916.

Best regards,

Andreas

French Poilus

Hello,

today, for a change, I'm showing you something I painted myself. These figures are part of an experiment I undertook last August or September. I wanted to try painting only the base colors on some figures and representing all the shadows and details, etc., with blck ink hatching. A bit like in comic books.

I used scans of Pellerin French figures as references, as well as a photo of a soldier firing a gun. I scaled the figures to 8 cm.

After painting a few, I used the design of a medal commemorating the return of Alsace-Lorraine as my reference too.

Since I think this technique works quite well with the WWI figures, I wanted to try it out on Napoleonic uniforms, so I started to make a few Bavarians.

I think it could work with figures in "action" poses. However, I don't like it as much on these classic figures standing at attention.

These experiments are currently complete for me, but I can easily imagine creating some opponents for these Poilus at some point.

Best regards,

Andreas

J.F.Schreiber 394 (Mini) - Englische Truppen

Hello,

Today I'm showing you another Schreiber mini-sheet. This one is number 394 and depicts British troops (in German usage until 1945, everything was considered "English"). It also features a Roman numeral, this time "LXXVI" (76).

The British soldiers are wearing the khaki colonial uniform of around 1900. Two figures from the WW1 British Infantry set are also included. The figures are 55 to 60 mm tall.

Best regards, 

Andreas

Abadie - Einzelfiguren, Italienische Armee

Hello,

I've shown many Abadie paper soldiers in the past – and "spoiler alert," I have more here waiting to be shown.

But these sheets weren't the only paper soldiers this Austrian cigarette paper manufacturer produced. Besides the three series of "Soldaten Bilderbögen" that I know of, a large number of individual figures were also distributed. These were certainly printed as sheets or strips, but then cut up and distributed along with individual cigarette paper packs. The cutting seems to have taken place at the retailer's, as I have several sections with two or three figures.

Unlike the printed sheets, these individual figures are printed on both sides, not just one. They are somewhat reminiscent of the French soldiers from H. Bouquet's "Pro Patria" series. In terms of size, they are also fairly comparable, but the drawing style is much simpler. Unlike the quite similar figures from the competitor "Olleschau," the Abadie individual figures are unfortunately not numbered, and I'm not aware of any list or anything similar. So it remains a mystery how many different variants of these figures existed – but there must have been quite a lot!

Today, as a first step, I'll show you my Italian figures from this series. It's striking that the same figures appear to have existed in approximately 55mm and 65mm sizes.

Best regards,

Andreas

Luxuspapierfabrik Berlin - Schweizer Schützen

Hello,

Following the general introduction of these figures a few days ago, today I'm showing you the Swiss Army riflemen (Schützen).

These represent the typical structure of a unit of these foldable figures. There are usually five groups of figures: one group depicts musicians, the other four represent infantry or cavalry, with one (sometimes two) figures representing an officer. Artillery, engineers, and other troops, however, do not include musicians and sometimes not even officers. Therefore, these groups usually only have fewer figure strips (mostly two to four).

The riflemen shown here come from box number 1 of the Swiss Army. The Swiss Army comprised a total of three boxes. I am familiar with the following Swiss figures from this series:

- Infanterie (Infantry)

- Schützen (Riflemen)

- Landsturm (Home Guard)

- Feld-Artillerie (Field Artillery)

- Berg-Artillerie (Mountain Artillery)

- Genie-Sappeur (Engineer Sapper)

- Dragoner (Dragoon)

Best regards,

Andreas