Saturday, 16 August 2025

"Remainder to Follow Soonest"

So said the compliment slip from Marcus Hinton c1974.

Now I've great admiration for Mr Hinton in terms of his sculpturing abilities and his vast range of figures. He has also given me endless pleasure for the last 50 years or so collecting, painting and gaming. I'm not the first however to comment on his rather disorganised mail order service. Still, for every cloud there is a silver lining and, in my case I received double the amount ordered on a few occasions after chasing him up. I would have loved to have met him.... a great British eccentric by all accounts.

 Like many of my contemporaries I was converted to metal figures and Hintons specifically after being frustrated with the limited range of plastic Airfix Napoleonics (Highlanders and Cuirassiers anyone?).  Hinton Hunt advertised in Military Modelling magazine so they were the chosen ones to expand my forces.  However Hintons came with the "exorbitant" price tag of 9p for a foot figure and 18p for mounted (approximately £1.50 and £3.00 in todays money) This stretched my pocket money budget somewhat especially if I was to follow Terry Wise's recommendation in "Introduction to Battle Gaming" of 27 figure battalions and 12 figure cavalry regiments. 

If only my pocket money would have stretched to "Bulk Prices"

 So my collection began in dribs and drabs which, if memory serves me correctly, started with French Grenadiers of the Old Guard. I remember being somewhat disappointed at the amount of flash and large mould plugs on the bases. Luckily my Dad was a metal worker so had a handy collection of files which were great for levelling the bases but not so much for the finer work required!

The first of many.

An advert in Military Modelling c1972 took me 70 miles or so to Deal where I had relatives, to buy some unwanted Hintons. I called into an old cottage near the sea front where the collector and his wife lived. He was a very kind and informative man and looked very old but was probably my age now (a sobering thought). I came away with some French line infantry, Russians and Tyrolean Jagers.  I recall turning down some French dismounted Dragoons including horse holders, probably due to lack of funds. About the same time, I ventured North across the river from my home in North West Kent to visit the Hinton Hunt shop in Camden Passage. I know now that it wasn't Marcus Hinton who served me having seen his photo and the Pathe News clip featured on the excellent Hinton Hunt Blog). I was very pleased to pick up some British Line infantry and was disappointed that I couldn't afford more. Fast forward a couple of years and my personal wealth had improved considerably when my first pay packets started rolling in. I was then able to begin to collect in earnest by mail order as the Hinton Hunt shop had closed by then. French Guard Grenadiers, Guard Chasseurs, Guard Artillery, Line Infantry, Lancers of the Guard, British Line, Rifles, Highlanders, Royal Field Artillery, and Scot's Greys were bought in quick succession. I also meticulously recorded every purchase and serial number, for reasons I can't remember, and have continued to do so ever since in the same notebook. 

The 45th Line containing some of the oldest vintage figures in my collection. I had no idea about grenadier or voltigeur companies when these were painted. Company pom pom colours were added when I got hold of a copy of Renee North's "Regiments at Waterloo"



You just don't get letters like that nowadays with your order...the handwritten note reads "very much regret the long delay due to illlness and staff shortage".


French Line 1807-12 painted with the aid of the souvenir magazine accompanying BBC's "War and Peace" . I'd yet to buy Funcken's "Uniforms of the Napoleonic Wars".

Chasseurs of the Guard. The Eagle Bearer has mislaid his bearskin and wears a shako (HH didn't produce a Chasseur Eagle bearer). My painting guide for these was from a single illustration in Renee North's "Military Uniforms 1886-1918" so they are forever blessed with bright green plumes.

Two of my four gun Guard Foot artillery (I actually ordered two!). All my early figures were painted with Humbrol gloss enamels - later varnished with matt (sorry all you gloss fans!) 

The Red Lancers....thankfully Funcken had now graced my bookshelves.

The complete early 1970's French collection with a couple of later interlopers (the terrain is a section of my scratch built Waterloo layout) 



The British 1st Guards some of whom came from the HH shop in Camden passage. Still no light or grenadier companies for these chaps


The 69th Foot. These poor fellows remained unpainted until about 1990 but at least have grenadier and light companies! 

The 92nd Gordon Highlanders. Notice the absence of the King's colour which was not produced by HH. I had no thought of converting in those days but was probably hopeful that a King's colour would be on the next production list (it never was). 

The 42nd Black Watch. If you have seen the illustration in Funcken you will know why the kilts bear no resemblance to the Black Watch tartan

Royal Field Artillery 


I think I bought four guns and crews to equal the unexpectedly swollen batteries of French Guard Foot artillery 

The riflemen in the sandpit are my originals painted with the darkest humbrol green available at the time. Their Clayton compatriots to the rear had the benefit of the Humbrol authentic range which did a good rifle green.  


There are twelve Tyrolean Jagers among this group including the Officer and horn player which were bought from the kind chap in Deal. The rest are lucky ebay finds misdescribed as Rose Miniatures. I've no other Austrian troops but always liked their appearance (and they can double up as Avant-Garde) 


The Royal North British Dragoons later to be joined by the rest of the Union Brigade courtesy of Clayton.


The British & allied contingent form up on the Mont St John crossroads (minus "Wellington's tree"). I think I'm due to get the rest of the terrain out of the loft and try another refight.
 

So ended my first phase of collecting. When I relocated to Deal in 1989 I found I had time on my hands to resume collecting. A plea published in one of the wargame magazines at the time brought a handful of figures from collectors in the USA and Australia. Then to my delight I received the address of David Clayton/Elan Enterprises, who had bought the HH moulds. Two bulk buys from him and another large second hand purchase from John Tuckey, a notable West Country wargamer, together with my vintage figures form the majority of my HH collection today.

You can see much of my collection in action on my next post which will be my Quatre Bras refight from last year.    


8 comments:

  1. An interesting tale of a young collector / gamer, it sparks so many similar memories - have you read 'Achtung Schweinehund!' it's a really good read?
    I think we all started with Airfix but I went to Hinchliffe next and other periods - I am a very recent convert to Hintons and the like.

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  2. I haven't read that one Rob, I'll look it up. I too tried a couple of 25mm Hinchcliffe which were too big but I still have Napoleon and Wellington (the latter still unpainted!)

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  3. Very interesting to hear your Hinton Hunt story. I think my brother and I bought our first Hinton’s around 1968/9 so a bit before you. Our joint pocket money allowed us to scrape together a ‘bulk’ order of 150 figures at the discounted price. Like you we had no uniform guides - only my Blandford which had just four pages on the Napoleonic Wars and of course the Airfix box art! I did paint with Matt enamels but there was no flesh colour available so used gloss mushroom for that and covered the whole figure with Humbrol gloss varnish - I love the fact that you painted Matt varnish over your gloss! What material did you use for your bases, I remember trying to (unsuccessfully) cut some from plywood!

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  4. Thanks Ian...I think my first purchase must have been around 1971/2 ...I have some grainy photos where they are mixed with Airfix and fighting for the "Waterloo Farmhouse". I too used Airfix boxes and the souvenir booklet from the Waterloo film as painting guides. I'd forgotten to mention that early undercoating was clear polyurethane varnish as recommended in one of the hobby magazines to prevent white metal fatigue...I never had any! My early bases were thick card from a long forgotten source covered with green electrical tape tape, which of course looked just awful, but allowed for individual casualty removal. When I took the scenic base plunge at the beginning of my second phase of collecting I switched to picture framing card and miliput. I think my ebay Tyrolean Jagers were on plywood, they took ages to remove!!

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  5. What a fun read. I love that you have kept the original paint rather than correcting the "errors". I am forever painting over my little mistakes. Like Rob, I transitioned from Airfix to Hinchliffe, primarily because that was what was carried by Howe's Model Shoppe in Oxford (I was there in 76-77 I believe, turning 13 while there.) I had read about Hinton Hunt in Bruce Quarrie's Napoleonic Wargaming Airfix guide, but had never seen any in the flesh until I purchased Dick Tennant's collection just a few years back.

    Your struggles with available pocket money as a lad rings true. As a 13 year old I remember battles with Airfix plastics and hand coloured miniatures cut from cardstock and taped to a base, so that I would have enough troops for a battle!

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  6. Glad you enjoyed it David. I'm very impressed by your childhood improvisation. Before Airfix expanded their Waterloo range my ACW figures had kepis sliced off and exchanged for sprue to represent shakos, and cavalry with painted cotton wool bearskins for the Scot's Greys ( I think Airfix magazine might have been to blame for that one).

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  7. This is a marvellous tale, Simon! I've looking through some of the earliest Military Modelling magazines lately, and there really was a dearth of good uniform references, unless you had the money to buy expensive individual prints. There was a lot more to choose from when I started wargaming in the late 70s, but schoolboy poverty made these hard to get nonetheless. I can still remember the shock I felt on discovering that the Airfix box art was not necessarily 100% accurate!

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  8. I've always enjoyed the uniform research aspect of the hobby Matthew It's comforting in some way, even now with the huge resources available via the internet, that the debate on details persists. It's all part of the fun!

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Quatre Bras 16 June 1815

This was a game I'd been wanting to do for some years but never had enough figures to create the desired spectacle. I was finally able t...