A Day in History

Amongst the new releases for April, King and Country announced a new rendition of Cleopatra, this time in a carrying chair. This is the fourth version of this great Egyptian queen being produced by Andy Neilson and his team. So, for this new blog, we will have a look at the three previous editions of this iconic Ptolemaic ruler as at the brand new AE101 - Queen Cleopatra’s Sedan Chair Set.

The first Cleopatra produced by King and Country w

The 1972 movie Jeremiah Johnson, inspired by the life of Liver-Eating Johnson, is at the origin of some of the creations in the Whiskey, Scalps And Beaver Pelts collection by John Jenkins Designs. One of the latest releases, the JJ-WSP-59 - Del Gue, once again refers to this universe. This new set comes with a buried-to-the-neck version of Del Gue, making it probably one of the smallest toy soldiers ever produced by John Jenkins. But could Del Gue be the smallest toy soldier produced by John Jenkins? To answer that, we will have a look at other small figures John Jenkins has produced in the past. But first, let’s take a look at Del Gue as it is the one who started this big questioning.

For the peoples of the first nations, summer was the season for the Great Buffalo Hunts. During those ceremonial hunts, the whole village was participating either by killing the beasts or butchering their meat for transportation. In the popular imagery, the bison became so much associated with the Plains Indians that King and Country integrated some in its The Real West collection!

For Hong Kong, June is an important month. It was on June 9th 1898 that the Hong Kong territory was leased to the British for 99 years. As agreed,it was later given back to China on June 30th 1997. During those years, many toy soldier makers installed themselves on this territory. Such was the case for King and Country and, although it was not the plan at first, this eventually had an impact on the collections produced as we will see here..

During World War Two, the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942 can be considered as the main turning point for the North African front. From that moment, the allied forces began to steadily push back the Axis troops. The last chapter of the liberation of North Africa is known as the Tunisian campaign and lasted from 17 November 1942 to 13 May 1943.

During the Great War, one of the most crucial moments for Canada was between April 9th to April 12 1917 in what is known today as the Battle of Vimy Ridge. It was the first time that such a large-scale operation was assigned to a Canadian commander. It was also the first time that all the four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force would fight on the same battlefield

Each year, March 8th is known as the International Women's Day. This is a day where accomplishments toward women rights and gender equality are celebrated and pondered. When it comes to the world of toy soldiers, we see few women collectors here and there, but we must admit that this passion seems to mostly interest men. Nonetheless, it’s a day that we can commemorate by looking at some of the best female toy soldiers (and I’m not talking of The Hussar Hussie #1 'Monique' here).

February 1st 1894 saw the birth of a film director who marked the history of the Western movies. His work is responsible for the interest that many collectors have in this genre. His movies even inspired a whole collection by King and Country. In fact, he probably had an impact on many other collections with the numerous war documentaries he produced when working with the Office of Strategic Services. So, to commemorate this important birthday, the monthly blog entry is about John Ford.

Every year, toy soldiers manufacturers come with tons of new releases. With the end of 2021, I figured that it would be nice to look at what was new and amazing, just to highlight the most interesting points of the last 12 months.

During World War Two, Hong Kong, which was a British colony at the time, found itself threatened by the Japanese forces. The war between Great Britain and Japan had not officially started, but signs of a possible attack were there. So troops from Britain, India and Canada were sent there to garnison the city with the local forces. In total 14 564 troops were gathered for this task. With the war raging in Europe, this was quite an achievement to find so many men. Amongst the Canadian troops sent to Hong Kong were the Royal Rifles of Canada from Québec City and the Winnipeg Grenadiers from Manitoba.