Lamming Napoleonic Figures

A recent eBay arrival contained, among other things, around 20 Lamming Napoleonic foot and eight mounted figures. There were one of each of the foot figures and some duplicates among the mounted, which included four different types of horse.

This is a significant addition for me as I have never had sight of most of these figures - I have a couple of units (yet to be repainted) and a few odds and ends, mostly command figures.

The foot figures contain more of these (command figures), two four man artillery crews (RHA and French Foot), and a number of standard infantrymen.

The artillery crews do not quite include all the gunner figures which were produced. There is also one slightly intriguing figure, of which more anon. With this exception they are all from the first series Napoleonic Range (before Bill Lamming replaced them all with "heroic 25 mm" versions. While all the figures are very welcome additions, I am particularly struck by the mounted figures as I am not sure (without an all-day expedition into the loft) whether I actually have any of the first series cavalry already.

I will also need to do some further investigation into the horses, in case I can identify and/or find a list for those with visible codes - this may provide a further post.


BRITISH FIGURES

British Line Infantry BI 1,2 and 5 - advancing, officer and drummer

British Light Infantry BI 8 - advancing

Royal Fusilier Officer BI 10

Royal Horse Artillery BA 1, 3, 5, 6

Royal Scots Grey Officer BC 6

FRENCH FIGURES

French Line Elite Company FI 1

Imperial Guard Grenadiers FI 4, 6, 3 - officer, drummer and advancing

French Line Fusilier FI 8

French Line Foot Artillery FA 1, 3, 5 and 6

French Cuirassier Officer FC 8

Dutch or Polish Lancer FC 19

PRUSSIAN FIGURES

Prussian Line Infantry PI 3 - officer

Prussian Guard Grenadiers PI 5, 2 - officer and advancing

FIGURES - IDENTIFICATION NOT CONFIRMED

I have not been able to provide confirmed identification of these figures and any help with this would be gratefully received. In some cases I have a strong idea but don't yet have 100% certainty.

Mystery Prussian Line Infantry - PI 1?

French Hussar Elite in Busby FC 13; or FC 1 Chasseur a Cheval of the Guard? Or other? Horse is not necessarily a clue - haven't done any work on the horses so mounted at random

Possibly British Hussar BC 1

I have two further British Cavalry figures to photograph - British Lifeguards BC 3 and 8 - trooper and officer.

When I have done whatever I can on the identification of the horses (which may not, of course, have been the right ones to start with) I will add new photographs. I also hope to add individual posts for each of the figures in this post.

And next I will post something about the mystery Prussian Fusilier pictured above. I have been talking to the Hinton Spieler about this figure and I think it is fair to say we haven't reached a consensus on it, so I think Matthew will be also be posting about it there,

More e-bay mystery figures

Greg from Oz sent me these pictures from some recent e-bay lots.

He wrote:

I wonder if your readers might be able to cast a little light on some figures for me.

Some time ago I failed to win a number of eBay auctions.

The figures were as pictured and were reputedly by an Ed Saunders of Taunton. As you can see they are 7YW subjects and not without some charm.

According to the notes in the auctions, the figure bases were cut from tin cans. I presume the figures were soldered to them.

Interestingly, the cavalry look like old Airfix horses and are not dissimilar to the Marchmont Dragoons depicted in “Charge!”.

If anyone has any information, I’m exceedingly curious.


I wrote back (this is counding like That's Life, isn't it):

Hi Greg

Ed Saunders is a name that crops up regularly in early issues of Don Featherstone’s Wargamer’s Newsletter and also occasionally in Jack Scruby’s magazines. I think he is the same as the A W Saunders in the link below.

here (from Mike Taber's table Top Talk)

Interestingly the first article is about figures he made himself, although in a smaller scale. The method he describes for making them could fit very well with these figures. As you say the horses have a definite Airfix look to them – possibly the US Cavalry set. If they are mounted on tin bases the chances are that these have been cast in metal – I can’t imagine the plastic horses with the pegs for the plastic bases cut off and araldited to tin bases would be rigid enough or strong enough to hold metal riders.

I’ll post the pictures and a request for any information on the Vintage Wargaming and Old Metal Detector blogs, and I’ll circulate to a few people who might know more.

True to my word I'm posting the photos and request for information both here and on Vintage Wargaming.

If anyone could shed any light on whether Ed Saunders and A W Saunders are one and the same (I guess I could go through loads of old Wargamer's Newsletters to see if I could work this out but I don't have the time to do it at the moment), or has any further information on these figures, please respond in a comment. Thanks.

Lamming SYW range, anyone?

Earlier posts on Vintage Wargaming here and here referred to the Lamming Seven Years' War range, about which little information exists other than that they were definitely in production in December 1970 and no longer in production by January 1972.

I have never seen any lists for this range or any photographs of them. Thanks to Paul in Oz these pictures show a possible sighting. The clue is the Easter Island face. Does anyone recognise this figure, or have any further information on this figure or the range?

Mystery ECW figures

Maybe not as much a mystery as why I don't seem to have posted anything here since October last year - not intentional, just Vintage Wargaming is taking up most of my blogging time I guess.

Inspired by Tony's new ECW project over at Prometheus in Aspic I rummaged through my assorted ECW oddments a while ago to put together a unit and this is the result - after painting they waited a long time for me to decide on a basing convention for them. No command figures as yet.

The pikemen are not I think the same manufacturer as the musketeers. i suspect some of them may be Warrior, but I am not sure. Any clarification gratefully received.

Mystery Royal Horse Guards

These fellows recently appeared on Tony's Prometheus in Aspic blog and now I'm glad to say they reside with me. Not sure what I will do with them - they may see service as ADCs. I have another version of this figure, painted white as a cuirassier. So far the general opinion seems to be these may be home made pieces.

Napoleonic gunners id help

Can anyone identify these figures - what are they supposed to be? and who made them?

They look like they have been painted as Austrian artillery. They could possibly be intended to be Swedes, too? I think the first and third figure (L to R) are from one manufacturer, and the other two from another