Toy soldiers for sale Petticoat Lane Market London Christmas 1947
You can see the whole offcut of Pathe Newsreel Christmas Shopping 1947
Difficult to get a good clear close up on moving film.
These at first sight appear to be hollowcast lead figures, sold boxed in the market – hard to identify, but they could be Crescent or copies. However, after checking a few sources in response to a comment by Alan Gruber, in 1947 they were probably solid cast or homecast scrap metal.
Classic playset arrangement mixture of scales in some boxes of big figures, smaller horses.
Hopefully they cheered a small boy for Christmas 1947!
Brian Carrick of the Collecting Toy Soldiers blog has found some more Pathe Newsreel toy soldier related films here:
http://toysoldiercollecting.blogspot.com/2020/07/early-toy-soldier-newsreels.html
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, July 2020.
B.P.S. Blog Post Script
In response to Alan Gruber’s question: “Do we know how toy soldier production was affected by the war and was it much better by 1947? The dolls look home made and I wonder if there was much of a market in cheap copies? Would it be hard to have got hold of metal anyway? A most enjoyable clip,thanks for posting it.”
Many of the Britain’s toy companies including Britain’s (1941) shut down toy production due to a scarcity of suitable metal and shifted to munitions war work. Postwar for a number of years, much of the metal available was for export manufacture of figures to the US and world markets, rather than home market. Hollowcast production did not widely resume until about 1949.
In Christmas 1947, these figures being sold in the market may well have been scrap metal home casts or solid copies. The boxes look unmarked.
Here is more detail from a small section from the wonderful Norman Joplin’s colourful and inspiring The Great Book of Hollowcast Figures.
Taken from Norman Joplin’s The Great Book of Hollowcast Figures
For more on wartime and postwar toy improvisation read these two posts about Alfred Lubran’s DIY wartime 1940s Toys – an unusual ‘Character’
https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/alfred-lubrans-action-diy-wartime-chess-game-rules/
Man of Tin blog 
He looks like he may be related to Private Walker…
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He is a dapper, smart looking chap. Great faces in this Newsreel. All genuine original material they are selling, none of yer cheap rubbish. .
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Do we know how toy soldier production was affected by the war and was it much better by 1947? The dolls look home made and I wonder if there was much of a market in cheap copies? Would it be hard to have got hold of metal anyway? A most enjoyable clip,thanks for posting it.
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Wrote a Blog Post Script which answers your question – you are right, they are probably cheap brightly painted home cast solid copies with whatever scrap metal was around. But I’m sure their young owners loved them none the less on Christmas Day.
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Great post- fascinating glimpse into that period of post war Britain.
Cheers,
Pete.
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A great find Mark, my dad used to take me to Petticoat Lane in the 1960’s, it hadn’t changed a bit, this took me straight back.
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Thanks, Brian. I never went to Petticoat Lane as a child but did love one of the (ancient) street markets in South London that my family regularly went to. I loved it mainly for all the lost veg under barrows which you see at height, the odd shuffle and sideways jostle moving through the crowd and the singsong calls and cheeky chat, lady, cheeky chat of the barrowboys, many of whom were clearly no longer Boys. I loved the bright cards with the prices and peculiar market writing. It had its own particular smell of wet street and produce. I was fascinated as as a child by a job where you get to shout for a living, over the top of the other calls, like an urban dawn chorus. If I have ever have had to do a selling / fundraising / charity slot, I search around for a cheery singable slogan or repeatable patter. You also knew many of the bargains wasn’t. Never tried the pie or mash or eels though. Happily it is all still there.
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