I was alerted to the online sale of this small box of John Mitchell Military Miniatures, thanks to Stephen Prentice. Stephen had seen my previous entries on John Mitchell box sets and buildings.
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/john-mitchell-15mm-peter-laing-painted-starter-sets/
The late John Mitchell, who died last year, painted boxes of Peter Laing 15mm figures for sale, right the way up to whole starter armies.
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/19/simple-ecw-starter-rules-a-john-mitchell-tribute/
Some of the figures IDs are obvious – I had heard of the Victorian girl with hoop F7051 and Victorian boy with flag F7052 so I was confident that these probably were Peter Laing figures as best I could tell from the small online sales pictures.
The missing figure of the eight is possibly a duplicate of the girl, standing man or boy with flag? As one of my family pointed out, in keeping with today’s pulp fiction / Victorian Science Fiction VSF gaming, this might also be an ultra-rare, uncatalogued Peter Laing 15mm figure of The Invisible Man.
Hopefully my fellow Peter Laing collectors will assist me in identifying the other figures, which are presumably:
F7049 Civilian Male standing – presumably the male figure with the larger hat?
F7050 Civilian female standing – presumably the female figure with the hat or bonnet?
This still leaves unidentified the standing woman or older girl without hat and the man with hat and gesticulating arm on the odd-one-out green base.
Female figures are pretty rare in the Peter Laing range of figures. As part of FEMbruary looking at female figures in my collection, there is
F3006 A female settler and
F3018 Squaw in the ACW / Pony Wars series,
F8006 a Cantiniere in the Franco-Prussian range,
F9013 a peasant woman in the late Samurai series
F6009 a European woman (Memsahib) in the Indian Mutiny range.
Any of these might be in this box masquerading as Victorian Civilians.
Handling the box itself was interesting, it felt like the same flimsy card on which his card buildings were printed. The box is in fact a single sheet of A4 printed card cleverly folded. Unfortunately they were printed with a spelling mistake or printers typo of “Minatures” instead of “Miniatures”.
Fascinating to have one of these Mitchell sets and best of all, some delightful Peter Laing figures I thought that I would never own.
Blogposted by Mark, Man of TIN, February 2018.
Lovely set of figures Mark and beautifully painted. Excellent find.
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I had only seen one set of John Mitchell painted sets before (Native Americans and buffalo – thanks to Alec Green) and it was interesting to see their paint style. Great to be able to share them with other PL collectors.
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Congratulations on this great find! And thank you for the posting. I have long wanted to see these figures, although now I want some even more. I have a couple of the French cantinieri and have thought of trying to modify them dressed a little more conservatively.
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John
This find was just pure tip off fluke and luck. I’m glad that I have even just seen them. Great to be able to share the pictures with other PL collectors.
Not sure if I have seen the PL cantinieres but I’m sure a simple paint conversion would convert them into Wild West Civilians with barrel / goods although they are a colourful addition to any 19 c French army.
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Hi Mark, what a great find! I have only seen a couple of those figures before. As regards the Cantiniere, when I can find anything after my house move, I have several of those, so I m sure I can send you a couple of spares. May take a few weeks yet as the boxes are stacked six deep in the garage!
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Thanks Ian I think you have my email if one turns up. Best of luck with the ongoing boxstacking and unpacking.
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What a great find! If only the Peter Laing figures were still in production; I’d certainly some if they were.
All the best,
Bon
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I agree Bob. If they were still available, I would be poorer in wallet and richer in lead. PL Figures do come up on EBay sometimes several this week and often get posted to the Google Plus Peter Laing community set up by Ian Dury.
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It can’t be the ultra-rare ‘Invisible Man’; his base always shows.
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Why didn’t I think of that?
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Just looked at your mystery figure again, and I actually think it is a conversion from F0037, British Sailor with Cutlass, from the Napoleonic range. Cutlass cut away and broad hat cut down – that certainly looks like a scabbard on his left leg
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Thanks Ian for this suggestion. I have that sailor figure somewhere, so I will place them alongside each other at some point. I thought that he might have been altered or articulated in some way.
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