B is for British Bearskins

The most iconic Toy Soldier type, by the most iconic Toy Soldier manufacturer; Britains. Famous for their hollow-cast ceremonials, they were bound to produce them when they started experimenting with plastic and indeed, some of the first figures they commissioned from Zang were the predecessors of these figures.

The moulds were re-cut upon the change from 'straight' Zang to the Herald brand, and would continue in production for decades with a slow decline in paint style and quality and a change to a softer vinyl/PVC material. Three shooting poses were added after production had moved to Hong Kong, and the officer was dropped from the range, there is a standard bearer missing from the above line-up and I have Michael Melnyk to thank for several of the above figures.

A mounted officer (similar to the Highland pose - no removable arm) also went the distance, and while I've tried to arrange all the above shots in chronological order with the oldest to the left, I'm not sure on the various saddle's originality, nor the age of the last horse which may be older than the PVC rider.

The out-painters had two ways of painting the SLR, with some silvering the bayonet only and others painting the barrel silver, right back to the gas-parts. These two versions are as common as each other and therefore make a collectable paint-variant.

The lower shot shows four of the main base types, again; oldest to the left, they are; Herald original, early Hong Kong figure with moulded-on base, later (1970's) glued into the box tray and finally the plug-on late style base, a hierarchy they share with the Combat Infantry and Wild West figures from 'Herald Hong Kong'.

When Britains introduced the Deetail range they added a set of six guards (the 'Royal Salute - Present Arms' pose is missing from the above image), which would run alongside the Herald pretty-much 'till the end. I don't know the significance of the base colours - except that the green is the commoner (perhaps the black are from some touristy thing commissioned by someone else from Britains?) and the black-based ones seem to have the matching (and correct) black trousers every time.