Do you remember the days when toy soldiers were the bomb?
- Toy soldiers, also known as ‘tin soldiers’ are small figurine toys, typically based on members of combat or military groups.
- Folk depicted as toy soldiers range from those of modern to historical armies, pirates, cowboys and knights, among others, sometimes in both genders.
- Modern toy soldiers are most commonly made of plastic, although resin, as well as metal ones are also available – typically made of tin, antimony or pewter; while wood, lead, rock and clay ones were produced in the past; and while they are typically three dimensional, sometimes flat two dimensional soldiers were made from tin in the 1700s and 1800s.
- Toy soldiers are often used for child’s play, though some figurines are designed for collecting, however before they were reinvented as toys, they were made for and used by the military and/or rulers to plan attacks against enemies.
- Generally, toy soldiers are of a scale ratio of 1:28 to 1:35, with 1:32 is the most common and thus they are an average height of 5.4 centimetres (2.1 inches), though larger and smaller scale ones are available.
- Figurines depicting army men were sometimes used as part of burial practices in Ancient Egypt thousands of years ago, while toy soldiers created for the purpose of play started appearing around the early 1700s, and were made by Germans.
- Toy maker William Britain from the United Kingdom invented hollow metal toy soldiers in 1893, which due to their greater affordability because of less metal used, led to an increase in popularity of the play soldiers.
- Toy soldiers can be purchased either painted or not, while the unpainted ones can be painted by the buyer, or they can be left unpainted, with green being the stereotypical base colour, as depicted in the Toy Story animation films.
- Popular games using toy soldiers are often orientated around war themes, especially involving the knocking down of said soldiers using cheap, home-made weapons.
- Toy soldiers are most commonly sold in bulk, often in barrels, buckets or boxes from toy shops, large department stores, or specialty outlets, however, collectible figurines are often sold individually.
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