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| Chuck's very generous donation |
My cunning plan of starting whichever project turned up first has been completely derailed by the arrival of numerous fabulous things simultaneously!
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| 4 Eagles. |
Chuck Gibke in the USA, gentleman, scholar, DK connoisseur and all-round smashing bloke, has donated a fantastic collection of DK French command figures, and much else besides.
Perhaps most treasured of all are these four French line infantry eagle-bearers. My complete lack of eagles was the main reason I haven't made a start on the small army of DK Frenchmen I've been collecting to fight my HH Prussians.
Most of the figures are from the
DK 13 set:
French Line Infantry Command 1812: 4 drummers, 3 eagle bearers, and 5 marching and 3 charging officers. The final eagle bearer looks like he might be from the
DK 7 set:
French Line Infantry Command 1809.
Chuck also very generously sent me 8 x
DK 121: Prussian Guard Infantry advancing, which is what I need to complete the 2nd East Prussian Grenadiers.
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| Officers and Drummers |
Rounding it off were 12 Jack Scruby French and British standard bearers. Although very simple sculpts they are very well proportioned and I think they'll paint up very nicely. I certainly intend to use them if I can find a way to reposition their flags. This won't be easy as they've been very solidly cast.
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| DK 121: Prussian Foot Guards Advancing |
Needless to say, I am heavily indebted to Chuck for his fantastic
generosity. I'll just have to make sure that my painting efforts do them
justice..
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| Scruby Standard Bearers |
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| Suspected Hinchliffes! |
In an entirely separate package were what I'm almost sure are a set of 6 Hinchliffe 20mm-scale French field guns. I bought these from my good friend Richard in New Zealand. I'm not completely certain what they are but they certainly look very Hinchliffe-y - to me. The inward-sloping camber of the wheels may be a bit of a clue. I have the feeling that only Frank Hinchliffe would have bothered with a detail like this at 20mm scale!
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| French Gribeauval 6 pdr? |
They look to me as if they might be French Gribeauval pattern 6 pounders, but they would do very well as Prussian 6 pounders as well, in my opinion. Whatever they are, I'm completely delighted with them.
So the big decision is: will it be Prussian artillery or French infantry on the painting table this weekend? I'll keep you posted!
WM
Hinchliffe was the master of artillery pieces , Tony
ReplyDeleteYou are a lucky boy - I'm looking forward to seeing them transformed by your brush!
ReplyDeleteI am indeed! Nothing less than my best shot will be required for these guys. Those French drummers in particular have given me the fear!
DeleteMatt, I think what you have here, certainly in the last pic, are Warrior 25mm guns. The last pic is identical to two FA1 French 8lb guns that I have. Warrior have been around for well over 40 years and are still available today but are often overlooked, which is a shame, as their Napoleonic field guns are beautiful models that, although supposedly 25mm, compare well to Hinchliffe 20mm pieces. I only have two Hinchliffe 20mm Pieces to compare them with, both British 9lb, but they are easily mistaken for the same maker. Warrior were mentioned at the back of the great wargaming classic, Napoleonic Wargaming, by Charles Grant. Perhaps I am wrong, but I hope this helps. Michael.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ID, Mike. They are indeed rather lovely!
DeleteMichael is right! It was tormenting me that the guns had dolphins and I think Hinchliffe didn't . Also these have trunnions and Hinchliffe had two depressions on their barrel that were fitted to two bumps on the carriage where trunnions would be, but I could not work out which manufacturer it was. Nice models.
Deletehttp://www.warrioronline.demon.co.uk/howtoorder.htm
ReplyDeleteThe above gets you to Warrior who appear to be still in production. Their figures are just a bit big to go with HH or DK
, but the Guns fit fine.
This is terribly late - I only found this post by accident after someone sent me a link...
ReplyDeleteHinchliffe 20mm guns distinguished by the dreaded hub rings, but since many people didn't fit these, the best indicator is the way the barrels fit into the trail cheeks; Hinch 25mm and most other makers have trunnions cast on the barrels, which drop into grooves in the trail - sometimes there are fiddly caps to fit over these. Hinch 20 don't do that - the barrels have dimples in each side, and a bump on the inside of the cheek locates in that - the trunnions are cast as dummies on the trail. I don't think I explained that very well, but I believe this is reliable. Since this post was long ago, I'm sure this is all well known to you now - I must say the quality of the Warrior pieces is a nice surprise - I shall check these out.
Thank you Foy - a very useful explanation for anyone stumbling across this post. I wish I'd known this is 2015.
DeleteThe Warriors are very nice. My only criticism is that the barrels are just teeny tiny bit on the stubby side.
The Old Metal Detector and I invested a fair amount of time in successfully collecting a full set of good specimens of the Hinch 20 pieces - the reasoning was thus:
Delete(1) They were too good to be allowed just to disappear.
(2) Since Skytrex (recent owners) denied that they had ever existed, and they were not sold onto Hinds with the Hinchliffe rights, we couldn't see how we could be offending anyone's intellectual property rights.
Anyone interested in these non-existent artillery models of yesteryear are recommended to contact Old John, at 20mm Nostalgic Revival. We get by with a little help from our friends.