I have spent a blustery wet day today inside in the dry and warm, reading through the superb website of scanned Donald Featherstone’s Wargamers Newsletters.
I have been searching for Peter Laing adverts and reviews from the early 70s, looking at how the new scale and ranges of 15mm figures by the “industrious” Peter Laing rapidly emerged.
https://collectingpeterlaing15mmfigures.wordpress.com/some-peter-laing-adverts/
One of the oddest Peter Laing adverts so far was December 1973 typed advert (above) about the benefits of 15mm and the first six figure series or ranges totalling 100s of items that Peter Laing produced in his first year!
“If she * (the little woman – Mum – the Wife – the Girl Friend – or the better half!) complains that your army or collection is taking up too much room (or you are spending too much money) then Peter Laing’s figures could be the answer …”
Peter Laing 15mm Colonial figures (including bagpiper) – the unusual route to marital bliss?
I wonder what Mrs Laing – Wife – Better Half – etc thought of the advert?
These “Little Women” in Peter Laing’s life didn’t emerge for a few more years in the Late Victorian Parade Range (and probably ACW and Indian Mutiny Series).
By Christmas 1973, interest was growing in the new smaller scales of 15mm and 5 or 6mm. Minifigs has also by then launched a 15mm and 5mm Range.
In December 1973 I was still literally cutting my teeth at “Floor Games” level on larger plastic Airfix figures. Ten years later c. 1982/83 I would be buying my first Peter Laing ECW figures with my pocket money and paper round earnings.
This cataloguing and celebrating my Peter Laing figures (all now sadly out of production) is one of my ongoing 2022 projects and New Gaming Year’s Irresolutions, counting down towards the 50th anniversary of the first figures in October / November 2022.
Why do this? Pertly it’s because Peter Laing never produced an illustrated catalogue before the range vanished in the late 80s / early 90s when he retired. Now the moulds have sadly vanished.
Fellow Peter Laing collectors from the MeWe Peter Laing collectors circle have already started to contribute photos of figures or ranges I don’t have and sometimes figures I have never seen.
https://collectingpeterlaing15mmfigures.wordpress.com
The first advert October / November 1972 Military Modelling (Ian Dury collection)
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN blog, 8th January 2022
Man of Tin blog 