Vintage 20mil in their history of Lamming Miniatures stated:
Lamming’s first 20mm range covered the Seven Years War. It was launched early in 1968 and included British, French, Austrian and Prussian troops. The details we have of the range are sketchy but it appears that it included all arms, some artillery pieces and a fairly wide variety of troop types including a mounted British colonel. A photo in Wargamer’s Newsletter shows a gun and four-man artillery crew plus an officer. Infantry figures sold at one shilling (5p) and cavalry for 2/6d (12 p).
By 1970, when Lamming launched his 20mm Napoleonic range, the Seven Years War range seems to have been dropped. Adverts for The Northern Garrison in 1970s issues of Scale Models mention only the Napoleonics and in an article on gaming the Jacobite Rebellion that appeared in Miniature Warfare in January 1972 author Stuart Reid states "Lamming are no longer producing Seven years War figures".
I was very pleased at the time of my
earlier post to have found a few figures from this range. Now, following a heads up from Doug of
Unfashionably Shiny, I have rather more progress to report.
A couple of days before it was due to take place, Doug let me know of an auction taking place in Driffield on 23rd March 2013. This was described as follows:
To include THE LAMMING COLLECTION - the promotional display collection of painted die-cast scale models & military figures of Lamming Miniatures, Hull, on instructions from Mr W H Lamming who has retired
Lot 352 was described as Lamming, Seven Year War painted diecast figures, approximately one hundred and ninety figures, etc, including foot soldiers from three different regiments, cavalry, skirmishers, three gun crews and cannons, etc (190)
I wasn't able to attend or make a remote bid, but on checking after the sale and finding they were unsold, I bought this lot sight unseen for the reserve price, and on Monday was able to pick them up. I was very glad to find that they were what I had hoped for, as this had been a risk, despite the provenance.
The photo at the top of this post shows the mounted British Colonel mentioned in the Vintage20mil description. Below are some further pictures of some of these figures. They are extremely well painted for the time and the cavalry have very nice replacement pin swords - the curved light cavalry sabres are particularly fine. There are one or two figures from other manufacturers. If anyone can help with identifying troop types that would be helpful - SYW is not one of my main periods.
I am posting photographs of individual figures in a series of posts below, in what should be the most detailed description of this range yet available. I have never seen a list of this range and I haven't been able to put an outline one together here, as all the undersides of bases have been filed so the only legible code is the P/1 on some unpainted examples of the Prussian Grenadier I acquired from ebay recently. If anyone has such a list, I would be very glad to hear from you.
I am very glad to have found these figures and to now be able to give a reasonable representation of what must be at least a majority of this short lived range. i am also very pleased thath the figures have turned out to be as lovely as they are.
