Customer Reviews

Collecting American-Made Toy Soldiers

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Second of two large soft cover books by Richard O'Brien, specifically aimed at the identification and fair value of American Made Toy Soldiers. Includes brief history of each manufacturer pre and post WWII styles of soldiers. Top quality materials, mine has traveled thousands of miles in suitcases, back packs and the backseat. Opened and closed hundreds of times, it is still in great shape. Crisp and clear photos of most of the listed items have helped avoid confusion and misidentification.

With on-line auctions setting the pace in the toy soldier collecting world. An identification guide of this quality is a must in establishing a BEGINNING bid, while desirability sets how high the actual cost will go. Hopefully, an update of this book is in work as in my opinion the on-line auctions have driven the price of many of the toys to often double their listed price.

I've been collecting American toy soldiers all of my life, and this is by far the best guide that I've ever found. It works as a good overall history of the subject, as well as, a specific historical guide to the companies and individuals involved. It is also superb as an identification guide and for approximate pricing.
Whether you are into cast metal figures like Maniol, Barclay, or Grey Iron, or the classic Marx, Ideal, MPC, or Lido plastics, this is one great guide. It even covers comic book flats, paper soldiers, cerial premiums, and the original G.I. Joe. You can spend hours just flipping though this hefty book and reminiscing, even if you don't currently collect.

In a nutshell, this book is the American Made Toy Soldier Collector's Bible. Richard O'Brien was a pioneer in the compilation of information on American Made Toy Soldiers, without him, I dare to say the hobby would not be where it is today. There are many players who contributed to this book and the two previous versions who don't always get the glory but are just as important and the list is too long to name, but you can view their contributions in the credits.

As I said, there were two earlier editions of this book, so Collecting American Made Toy Soldiers 3rd Edition is the one to have. In my opinion, the best thing in this book is the company histories, you will not find many of them anywhere else, next is the cataloging of the individual figures, although extensive, new variations continue to be found (I keep up with all of them on my private website which is subscription based) and finally the photos, although they are black and white and of varying quality, at least you can see what they look like. There are many reasons to buy this book, but if you are a collector of American Made Toy Soldiers, it's a #1 must have.

On to the valuation guide, which I felt needed a separate paragraph for clarity. The values on the earliest makers such as American Solder, Eureka, Feix, Hahn and such are inaccurate, this is because so little was known about most of the companies at the time and collectors had no classification on them, making valuation difficult if not impossible. On the other hand the more commonly available and better documented Barclay, Manoil and Grey Iron figures were within reason at the time of publication in 1997. One has to remember this book was compiled and published just as the internet and eBay was beginning, so a vast amount of information and relevant valuation has surfaced since then. I tell everyone to look at the valuation guide as wholesale valuation in today's market and you can't go wrong...Rodney Hopson aka Scorcherxxx

Interesting book but it is NOT a book about Toy soldiers. It is about toys.
Unless you consider, farm animals, politicians, African animals, cars, boats, planes, actors,..s as "soldiers".
It is a good book about toy manufactures.

Save your money for a book on TOY SOLDIERS.