I have hinted now and then that I'm a bit of a fan of Lamming 20mm Napoleonics. I've tried to hide this, of course, but that regiment of
Lamming British Line infantry, and my tentative experiments with some of the
French part of the range, I fear, may have let the cat out of the bag.
What I've really been yearning for all along is a battalion of Lamming 20mm Prussians. I knew these existed because I already had one -
a charming little drummer who I conscripted into the
Prussian 10th Infantry Regiment. Here's a reminder of what he looks like:
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| Lamming PI/6: Prussian Line Infantry Drummer |
I identified him from his looks and from the fact that he has 'PI/6' inscribed underneath his base, which is listed as a Prussian Line Infantry drummer in the
Lamming 20mm range. The only other things I had to go on were a few glimpses in the wargaming literature of what I believe were
Lamming Prussians in the Peter Gilder collection, and an
intriguing post about the same collection by Clive over on his Hinton Hunter site.
Imagine my delight, therefore, when a number of Lamming Prussians, or what looked like them, popped up in three different lots, from three different vendors, on ebay. Pictured below is the haul. Lot 1 included the figure stripped to the metal in the second row; Lot 2 are all those painted light blue; and Lot 3 are the chaps in dark blue in the front row.
Once I'd got them altogether, however, it became clear that there were several weird things about them. The first question was: why is the officer so much larger than the rest of them? Did Bill intend him to be like this (Bill's officers do seem to be a bit bigger, on the whole), or was he part of a later, remodelled set of Lamming Prussians?
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Lamming 20mm PI/6 Prussian Line infantry drummer, PI/1 Prussian line infantry advancing,
and a somewhat oversized PI/3 Line infantry officer
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This is where Lot 4 comes into the picture, which I bought from a fellow living here in New Zealand. Lot 4 consists of an identical officer and half a dozen advancing infantryman who are really very different and altogether taller than the other lots. They are not, however, examples of the final range Bill Lamming produced in 1974/5. These, as shown in an earlier post, were a
great deal beefier. Pictured below are two of the Lot 4s added to the line up.
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An intriguing Lamming line up: a PI/6, two PI/1s (first variant), a PI/1 (second variant) and two PI/3s (second variant?)
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The next shot shows what's underneath the bases. As you can see, the two advancing infantry variants have PI/1 inscribed on them, while the officer sports a PI/3.
As if this wasn't confusing enough, two of the Lot 3 men were also noticeably different to the men in Lots 1 and 2. The next two pictures should show what I mean.
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| Lot 2 and Lot 3 |
The Lot 3s are slightly taller than the Lot 2s, and have slightly thicker and taller hats, different arms and legs, and larger, slightly misshapen bases. The torsos and blanket rolls are very similar, however.
Also different are the swords and muskets. The Lot 2s have a very simple sword moulded to the side of their left legs, while the Lot 3s have hanging swords. The packs are very similar though.
What to make of it? When I first saw them I thought the Lot 3s looked remarkably as if someone had grafted a Lamming head onto the body of a Hinton Hunt Prussian infantryman. The following, I hope, will illustrate what I mean.
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| Lamming PI/1, Unknown and Hinton Hunt PN 3: Prussian Infantry of the Line, charging |
This initially made me think the Lot 3 chaps must be Alberkens. Peter Gilder, the Alberken designer, often appears to have used Hinton Hunts as the basis for the figures in the Alberken range. I'm not completely convinced about this, however.
The question I'm asking myself is: which came first? My feeling at the moment is that the date order is probably right to left: Hinton Hunt, Lot 3 and then Lamming.
The Lot 3 looks like a Hinton Hunt, but with a new head and a lightly modified pack, blanket roll and sword. The Lamming looks like a further modification of the Lot 3, if anything, with new arms, legs, sword and musket, but retaining the torso. This may also account for the slight shrinkage in the hat and other details, which is not an unusual result of the recasting process.
My conclusion is that the Lot 3s, which I initially thought were Alberkens, may actually be a very early iteration of the Lamming Prussian range. It looks to me that Bill may have started out by modifying a Hinton Hunt or two.
Clive and I have already had a lively email debate about all this. As can be seen on the wonderful Old Metal Detector Blog
here, Clive is far from convinced, but for what it's worth, my theory about Lammings is that there were more than just two versions of the range, which is to say a 20mm range and a more or less completely resculpted 25mm range. If the evidence presented above is anything to go by, Bill seems to have tinkered quite a lot with the 20mm figures, including completely remodelling some of them, before tossing the lot in favour of 25mm figures. More than a few vintage Prussians, however, will be needed to prove this, so if anyone else has examples of these figures or any tales to tell about them, please get in touch!
Yours, as ever
WM
P.S. Evidence of 'tinkering', although of a very modest variety, can also be found in the French part of the Lamming 20mm range, which I will illustrate in a later post.
Edit:
Some really splendid early Lamming British Royal Horse Artillery can be seen on Rob Y's site
here.
