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

J.F.Schreiber 354 (Mini) - Italienisches Heer, Artillerie

Hello,

Today I'm showing you a mini-sheet from JFS. Many of these sheets bear a Roman numeral in addition to their actual numbering. Unfortunately, the meaning behind it is unknown.

My guess is that it represents some connection to the "large" printed sheets with the same motif. At least it's noticeable that the mini-motifs that aren't known as the larger version don't have a Roman numeral.

Otherwise, four of these miniature sheets were printed on one bigger paper sheet. However, the combination of the four motifs seems to have been arbitrary. At least some surviving examples in museums show different combinations.

The sheet shown here has the number 354 and the Roman numeral LXIV (64) and depicts four figures of Italian artillery.

The figure size is approximately 4.5 cm.

Best regards, 

Andreas

Italian Army - Marcel Vagné No.529

Hello,

Unfortunately, I have very little free time at the moment, so updates here are very sparse.

But today I'd like to show you this somewhat worn sheet by Marcel Vagne. It's numbered 529 and shows various figures from the branches of the Italian Army. The drawing style is very "special". The figures are very comic-like, with oversized torsos. 

The paper on which these soldiers were printed is somewhat thicker than one would normally expect from French publishers. The print can be dated to the period between 1880 and 1900. The figures are 7 cm tall.

Best regards,

Andreas

Abadie - Italian Soldiers Abyssinian War

Hello,

Today I'm showing you some loose figures from the Abadie series about the Abyssinian War. As far as I can tell, this series, with a total of 15 numbered soldier picture sheets (Soldatenbilderbögen), was published in 1937 and featured both Abyssinian and Italian troops. So far, I've only managed to find a few individual Italian figures for my collection.

The figures shown cannot be assigned to a specific number, as they all appeared multiple times.

The Italian officer was found on picture sheets number 9, 12 and 14.

The shooting soldier was found on picture sheets no. 9 and 15.

The Askari was printed on picture sheets no. 11 and 12.

The hand grenade launcher was found on picture sheets no. 10 and 13.

And the storming soldier appeared on picture sheets numbers 9, 12, and 14.

The figures in this series are slightly larger than the Abadie figures of the Austrian Federal Army but still correspond to a figure size of 6cm.

Best regards,

Andreas