Trees

Trees by Wesley Myers.

Dated: December 29, 1999.

This is my third installment in my series on accessories for toy soldiers. I was going to write about the Linka Model Building System, but I feel this should come first due to how fast the season is fleeing! Time flies when you are having fun (or busy wading through crowds of rude people who have forgotten the meaning of the season ...).

So, instead I will write about something I stumbled on a few years back when the whole

'Christmas Village' routine came about. This article is actually going to be aimed at a segment that doesn't seem to get much attention on here. 54mm scale figures. If you are into HO/OO scale - and most reading this probably are - you will still find plenty of use to you herein. I have scanned in some of the items that you can find as well as a couple of Starlux knights and Esci Germans (54mm) for scale. I noticed the buildings themselves were an odd scale (1/48 or so, but this all depended upon the company and to another extent the size of the box the house would be packed in). However, I noticed the porcelain people were about 1/32 to 1/35 scale. The accessories were what caught my eye the most!

There were bridges, trees of all sizes and shapes, benches, telephone booths, walls, fences ... etc, etc, etc!

All of them were usable for the 54mm figures! There were lights that actually operate. Now, I realise you can always get train set accessories for this scale, but have you looked at the prices?! Literally outrageous. This stuff? Quite reasonable - especially when you consider the cost of a recast/reissue set of accessories from makers' moulds such as Louis Marx and Co. The best part of it is the fact this is VERY seasonal stuff and it gets marked down to next to nothing after Christmas (sometimes even before!). As you read this, these items will probably be 50% off. Shortly they will be 75% off.

They will get picked over, so if you see something you want, don't wait too long because you

are not competing with too much of a niche market anymore. When I first noticed these items, there were trees and accessories galore! Now there isn't as much available (at least where I live). The trees initially were both with snow and without, now I seem to only be able to find winter trees. This is not really a problem as they can just be repainted! An airbrush or even a can of spraypaint will do the trick. The small trees which you will probably want to use for HO/OO scale stuff often have so much of the fake snow on them, they will look rather deformed. The larger ones for 54mm scale are perfect! The snow might even come off quite easily, I am not sure about this though.

The items are also quite well made. A lot being out of cast metal like the fences and benches and stuff - as opposed to plastic. Depending upon how you wargame/play with these figures that might be perfect as they will not fall over as easily with a hit from a rubber band or a firing cannon or catapult! There are also hills/mountains that are available. These are often snow covered as well, but with some painting they will work out great. They seem to have a lot of flat areas as well, which make things great for usage with figures - unlike the Atlantic vacu-formed mountains that really didn't allow a lot of figures to be placed on them; or the train tunnels/mountains that are the same with very few flat areas.

Well, I hope this is of some help to all you fellow collectors/toy soldier enthusiasts.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wesley Myers.

Webmaster's notes: 1) This contribution was sent in on Dec 22nd, but due to the holiday season and the fact that the server was down during this time, this is not posted until now. But fear not, such Christmas ornamentations are discounted more the longer after Christmas!

2) For those interested in 1/72 trees, houses, fences, and other accessories, there is a wide range of these accessories from model train accessory companies such as FALLER, KIBRI, and NOCH. (Submitted by Stefan Schaeferbarthold, Germany). In the US, such low cost items can be found at Toys R US or toy and model train discounters.

3) For people interested in buying cardboard models that Mr. Myers wrote about previously, PMI in Oregon, a card model company, carries thousands of these models. The owner (Louis Dausse) of the cardboard company has sent in a couple of samples for review, which will probably be done after the New Year. They even have a website showing pictures from their huge catalog. For more information you can contact Mr. Dausse.

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