Wooden Soldiers and Toy Cannons

A stylish gun crew … great little moustaches

These stylish guardsman arrived at Christmas in the company of this simple cannon. The cannon is wooden but with attractively simple metal wheels.

They are handmade, possibly using a lathe in places but also curiously and crudely carved on the body.

They look almost well padded or as a comedian like Max Miller would say “like a roll top desk, all front.” Very odd.

As usual, these wooden figures have quite fragile arms and rifles. Not something to repair – Sign of their veteran play worn status.

Tucked in with the package from the Etsy vintage trader was a little threebie or  freebie in the form of these vintage matching puzzles of jobs and uniforms in bright 1960s / 70s colours.

Showing the purple pull knob and wire arrangement.

The round little disk base can be seen on illustrations of toy soldiers featured here recently in this poem:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/11/24/a-poor-old-toy-soldiers-home/

And this sheet music parade of toy soldiers shows this simple base.

Illustrator Stephen Cartwright’s toy soldiers

From an Edwardian scrapbook in my collection

Wikipedia source.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/23/nutcracker-toy-soldiers/