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Sunday, April 28, 2013

D is for Dinky's Deutsche and Doughboy Dilema

A blog reader - Mathias Berthoux - got in touch the other day to ask me if he thought some figures might have been sculpted by Ron Cameron, a not unreasonable supposition, as he was sculpting for Airfix, Britains and Matchbox at around the same time (mid-1970's), however I've always thought they are more likely Charles Stadden's work.

My reasoning being that they bear more than a slight passing for those figures coming from the Lines/Tri-ang/Mettoy 'Minimodels' plant in Havent, Hampshire...to wit; hard plastic, minimum paint, round-ended bases.

And although one of them (the German gun-layer?) has a lot in common with a couple of the Matchbox poses and - indeed - a second type Airfix German or two (the poses not taken from the 54mm range), I think the clothing is more in the vein of Stadden's hand?

There were three German artillerymen issued with the Dinky 88mm Flak18, and another 3 US gunners issued with the 105mm Howitzer, around a prefect 1:32 scale, they are well animated and realistically sculpted poses. These Photographs supplied Mathias who runs the French Toy Soldier forum here;

Plastic Soldiers

Anyway, there is no guarantee that I'm right, and there are good reasons for it being either sculptor, so with Mathias' blessing I'm opening it up to the blog, in the hope that either someone knows for definite, or that a debate might ensue, leaving one a clear 'winner'? So what do you think, Cameron or Stadden?

Update - 3rd June 2013

Can I thank Andrew Stadden for looking-up the post, turning to his father's archive and confirming that these figures are indeed sculpted by Charles...

"These figures were the work of my father, and the pattern figures appear in his Invoices dated 28/04/1975 for a Company called Largrove Engineering. I don't know anything about Largrove, and they don't come up in any Google search, but I would guess they were doing the mouldmaking and production of the figures for Meccano."

I meant to add a picture of the full US crew but forgot to look for the figures, so maybe another time!
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6 comments:

  1. PaulApril 29, 2013 at 11:24 AM

    Smashing looking poses Hugh, no matter who sculpted them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hugh WalterApril 29, 2013 at 12:47 PM

    Hi Paul

    Yes, and the US figures are equally good.

    It struck me last night that the German Officer appears to be a scale-up of one of the Esci AFV kit crew poses, they were sculpted by a third chap who's name escapes me but it is mentioned in Garratt, and - I think - an old Military Modelling?!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.comApril 29, 2013 at 6:26 PM

    They do look a bit Staddenish to me. It might be a bit extreme, but his son has a webpage where he advertises his services and has a bit of his father's history. I suppose some one could ask him if he knows?

    http://www.acstadden.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hugh WalterApril 29, 2013 at 6:30 PM

    That's not a bad idea Ross - in fact it's a very good one and I hadn't thought of it...I'll try and get something off tonight!

    Cheers
    Hugh

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousApril 30, 2013 at 9:56 AM

    Difficult one but i think i'd go with stadden too.

    Geoff.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hugh WalterApril 30, 2013 at 1:13 PM

    So we're looking at a 3/nil for CS, I did eMail the young master Stadden last night, so we'll see if anything comes of that?

    H

    ReplyDelete

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