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Dear Partners,
Welcome to this month’s edition of ‘DISPATCHES’ and
the launch of a carefully selected group of previously-released
K&C figures with a whole-new look…
Here is the story behind them. As many
of you may know the history of toy soldier collecting goes back
almost two hundred years and for most of that time both the
manufacturing and collecting of these little fighting figures was
mainly centred in Europe and North
America.
Over the last two decades a growing number
of the collector base has moved to Asia with China being the
epicenter of that expansion. At the same time, this
expanding collector base is considerably younger than some those
in Europe and elsewhere and… very enthusiastic.
Here in Hong Kong and at events around Asia
I have been fortunate to personally meet many of these newer
collectors who have came into this
great hobby of ours.
Already, many of these same collectors have,
in a relatively short period, filled up their collections with
virtually all of the items released in
the last 10-15 years along with those currently still in
production.
Now, many of these same collectors are
actively seeking out rare, retired items from long-past releases.
Fortunately for some they can sometimes find
that special piece or set when it is offered up for sale by those
K &C dealers who also specialize in buying up collections and
reselling.
Failing that the ‘hunting’ collector
will go on ebay and often pay an
exorbitant price for what was once a modestly-priced
item.
In recent years many of these ‘newer’
collectors have suggested we should simply re-release some of the
most requested pieces in exactly the same
format and style as the original figures.
We gave this proposal a fair hearing before
deciding that K&C should adapt and improve any original
sculpt with our current approach to more authentic and realistic
style of painting and weathering.
So, now here we are releasing our very first
10 figures of what we are calling, King &
Country’s own ‘Heritage Classics’.
Grouped in five 2-man sets they were
originally part of our ‘Battle of The Bulge’ range
of German ‘winter’ soldiers with some release dates
going back as far as 2005 and 2006.
We selected these particular German soldiers
to add onto our recently- released all-new, Sdk7/1 ‘Flakvierling four-barrelled, anti aircraft
flak gun, half track.
As you will notice, K&C has also
transferred these ‘Heritage Classics’ from
Western Europe all the way to the frozen Eastern Front hence
the red identification bands on their upper left arms.
There are lots of other subtle differences
in these new figures but l’ll let you
discover them for yourselves.
In the meantime, let’s take a closer look.
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