I ordered several packs of these over the years. At first, I can remember them being sort of underwhelming; the were sort of thin or flat, nearly two-dimensional, compared to the typical barrel-chested, dimestore, olive-drab army man. But they sort of grew on you - it was easy to line up impressive ranks of them across from you friend's battle lines.
A few years back I traveled back home to FL to visit my aging grandparents. In the spare room I slept in I discovered a single yellow roman legionnaire inside a long-unused ashtray, a strangely poignant memento of long childhood summers lost to time. Last spring I traveled there again, this time, sadly, for a funeral, and discovered another gladius-wielding bravo hidden near the couch I slept on.
I have to wonder how many more of those brave fellows are still hiding in my grandparents' soon-to-be empty house, having waited so patiently in ambush these last thirty-odd years?
I was always intrigued by these ads.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs a child I remember being burned by the "100pc Toy Soldier" add (I'm sure way back then I never noticed the dimensions for the box clearly listed under the footlocker). What a disappointment went it finally came in the mail. All 100 pieces where flats and fit in that tiny box
DeleteI always wanted these when I was a kid, but never got them. I probably spent more time drooling over comic book ads than reading the comic books.
ReplyDeleteI imagine the solder by the ash tray saying, "Do me eyes deceive me? No! They do not! The general has returned! Orders, my lord!"
ReplyDeleteMan, I remember these EXACT ads. What memories, really a trip through time.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is a real nostalgia trip. I didn't own the Romans set, but I had the Toy Soldier and Fighting Ships sets. I don't know how many hours I spent playing with these when I was a kid (but it was a lot).
ReplyDeleteThese ads always made me want to buy them but for some reason I never did. Back then I had a serious G.I. Joe addiction (the big guys, not the tiny ones)and they were $2 each at the local department store. With allowance and doing extra chores I could afford to get one a month but it curtailed my spending on these back of the comic ads in my older brothers comics.
ReplyDeleteGood times man, good times.
Always wanted these. sigh.
ReplyDeleteI totally got these and spent untold hours on the livingroom floor with the blue legion battling the yellow. They spent a few decades in storage only to return to active duty about 3 years ago -- I mounted them on cardboard bases in units ("sagitarii", "velites", etc) developed a simple table-top wargame (sort of DBA-lite) and taught my middle school students to play!
ReplyDeleteVery cool that some of these noble citizen-soldiers are still on active duty!
DeleteThe 100 piece "foot locker" soldiers were indeed flats, and not of any consistent scale, which disappointed me enormously when I was a kid. The Roman legionnaires, however, were conventional vinyl-molded toy soldiers, though very small -- maybe 15mm. I had them and a similar set of comic book-advertised revolutionary war solders. Unfortunately, their small size meant that 10 year-old me lost them rapidly. I rather wish I'd kept them together, since they'd have made pretty good budget wargaming miniatures as Sawdust notes, above.
ReplyDeleteI think we ordered all of these. I think the only regular ad you're missing is the revolutionary war soldiers. I think those were the ones which convinced us to order the others, because they were three dimensional. Maybe in HO scale?
ReplyDeleteI know the hard plastic ones suffered attrition, largely due to my brother and I inventing a crude war game which involved shooting rubber bands and throwing mini-pool balls at the opposing forces.
They were always mere auxiliaries to regular soldiers, and later for actual Ho scale soldiers.
I still have a small plastic highlander somewhere, a souvenir of my earliest D&D games, before we even knew they sold figures.
Being a vampire is not what it seems like. It’s a life full of good, and amazing things. We are as human as you are.. It’s not what you are that counts, but how you choose to be. Do you want a life full of interesting things? Do you want to have power and influence over others? To be charming and desirable? To have wealth, health, and longevity? contact the vampires creed today via email: Richvampirekindom@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteThose were awesome! Your mates could come over and wage large scale battles on rainy days.
ReplyDelete