Napoleonic & ECW wargaming, with a load of old Hooptedoodle on this & that


Friday 3 April 2020

Something for Self-Isolated Souls Aged from 12 years old to 150...

...and for those who claim to be working from home, and are interested in daft puzzles.

This all stems from my setting out some miniature soldiers on the attic floor yesterday (a procedure I found strangely stressful), and from a subsequent comment by Aly M, who empathised with my discomfort.

The challenge is - estimate how much HG Wells spent on his collection of toy soldiers!

Braw lads

I'd welcome thoughts and guesses on this - in terms both of UK prices in his day, and the modern equivalent. Let's set this in 1911-13 - that's a period between the publication of Floor Games and Little Wars. If it helps, there were 12 pence to the shilling in those days, 20 shillings to the pound. If you wish, you may calculate how many weeks it would have taken a typical agricultural labourer to earn the price of a toy soldier. Whatever. You have the whole of the World Wide Web as your playroom.

It would be useful to have a feel for Wells' rules and how he played his games, how big the forces involved might be, how many periods he played (or was it all just one vaguely "recent modern" period for him?), the contemporary prices of Wm Britains hollowcast figures, whether Wells might get a fancy discount for bulk (the more fanciful the ideas the better, here), where he got those famous firing cannons, and how much they cost - anything and everything that might be (even remotely) relevant will be welcome. Estimate for breakage-replacement if you wish. This is not an attempt to produce a lifetime sum, it's simply about the armies he had around 1911-13, and how much he spent on them. I assume that he bought his soldiers off the shelf, ready painted. To be honest, I'm not even sure what kind of soldiers he fielded, or what the "sides" were - illustrations I've seen look a bit like the Trooping of the Colours - not many trenches or light troops in woods - a lot of formal dress. All very correct and proper. This also applies to the players, of course.

Classic attic-floor view - note that this is an artist's impression, or is it an enhanced photograph?
Ignore his collection of scenery, I think, although if you wish to have a guess at that then please carry on. You should also ignore the cost of refreshments for his guests, though it would be instructive to consider what would have been appropriate. It might even give me some guidelines for a variation of the guest menu at Chateau Foy, when things resume, after the Armistice.

My entry point for this is that it's not something I know much about, either about the workings of Wells' rules nor the lore of the 54mm hollowcast soldier. A friend of mine, when challenged recently on how much he spends each year on his wargaming, proved that it is less than his wife spends on visits to the hairdresser (take notes if you wish). I'd be interested to have an estimate for how much HG committed to his rather niche hobby activities.

I haven't started on any of this yet, other than thinking vaguely what might be involved, but I did a little Wiki reading on HG, and was surprised to learn that he was certainly a bit off the wall for his day; a Fabian, a pacifist and something of a socialist visionary, he also had a very complicated marital life (if you are into that sort of research) - he'd have been better off sticking with the little soldiers if you ask me...

Wells working in the garden - now this is scary - imagine the feverish head-count at the end, and checking the grass-box next time the lawn is mowed
All suggestions welcome - the wilder and more far-fetched the better. If I get no responses at all I will have proved something (about myself, probably), but I'm happy to keep this topic open if there's any interest. I am certainly not an expert, so I hope to learn a bit here!


Thinking of soldiers on the floor, I remember that once, as a lad in short pants, I accidentally kneeled on some troops during one of my periodic battles (which would have included Zulus, WW2 US Marines, Foreign Legionnaires, Arab tribesmen, all sorts). I broke two Britains kneeling Highlanders - red jackets, white tropical helmets. This must obviously have been a single incident among many similar, but, apart from the early OCD evidence that I had these two identical figures next to each other, behind a flat metal Johilco hedge section, I recall that I was fascinated (though disappointed, naturally) at the time that they broke identically - they both lost the same leg - exactly the same fracture. This may have been the moment in my childhood when I decided that I wanted to grow up to be a madman.


This may be the moment when it all started to slide. It's also possible that the indentation is still in my kneecap, in which case I could maybe cast some replicas.

I'll check it out.

18 comments:

  1. Now I may not certain if my earlier post got to you something odd happened when I pressed the button!,
    William Britains figures around 1912 cost 1d for infantry and 2d for cavalry some of the specials obviously cost more. Average earnings were £70 per annum and you started paying tax at £160 so there's a bit of a guess to mark on what H.G was earning!
    The cannon used was the notorious 4.7" naval gun originally fired metal shells which then became plastic but we always used matches. 😀
    A good starting point for the matchs would be to look at the Famous Battle for Hooks Farm
    http://nntk.net/hgwells/hooksfarm/hooksfarm.html
    This link gives photos etc and in fact has the copy of the Little Wars Book and if you haven't already read it then you need to 😀
    So hopefully this will give you a starter for 10

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    1. Thanks very much, Graham, this is an excellent starter - brilliant stuff!

      I had a very cheap reprint of Little Wars, but it came without any of the illustrations, which is up there with chocolate fireguards and inflatable dartboards in the usefulness league. I currently have both Little Wars and Floor Games on my Kindle - I regret that rules on Kindles really don't work for me at all, so I shall try to get myself a proper hard copy!

      Hope you are keeping well and coping well - challenging times.

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    2. Hmm, had a quick flick through Little Wars (should be a regular read for all wargamers, I think.) HGW says near the end that he has nearly 500 men and a score of guns.
      Ok, so at 1d for infantry and 2d for cavalry, given an approximate 2:1 split in numbers, say 30 bob for each arm of service, so £3 the lot. How much for guns? Half a crown each? That's another £2/10/-.
      Add a bit for specials and odds and ends (bit vague on whether there were any wagons, for example, he does suggest their use to carry artillery ammunition.)
      So, my guess, seven guineas the lot.
      (Assuming he wasn't sponsored by Britain's to increase their sales.)

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    3. Impressive - that doesn't seem very much, does it? That was fun, eh? Thanks for this.

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    4. Thanks for the fun of having to add up in L:s:d again. Haven't done that in a long time. It doesn't sound much until you think it's 2-3 months' average wages - so I probably overestimated.

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  2. I was surprised to learn from this BBC article that some of H G Wells own figure survive https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22777029

    Winston Churchill's collection also survive pictured on several sites including https://ageofrevolution.org/200-object/winston-churchills-toy-soldiers/

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    1. Thanks for this, Mark - I'm excited to read that Wells' troops had their heads re-attached with a piece of matchstick, which is what I used to do, but I suspect that my older cousins (who passed on their old toys to me) maybe passed on a traditional technique.

      Churchill's lads look like flats?

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  3. I do hope when you was stressing in the attic on you're hands and knees, you too wore a suit and tie like Mr Wells. If you didn't this cannot count and you have to start all over again.

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    1. Ray - I always wear a suit and tie like Mr Wells. And I never go anywhere without my crayons. Habits of a life-time of military hygiene.

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  4. There is(was) a big display of Churchill's toy soldiers at Blenheim Palace but as far as I can remember they weren't flats.

    As a kid I used to visit a friend (who interestingly lived in a village pub) to play with his toy soldiers in the back garden. These were a mixture of Airfix of all periods. We dug trenches for them and I'm sure many are probably still hiding in that garden now. I remember feeling uneasy about the possibility of permanently losing these troops and am grateful that I never took along any of my own!

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    1. Soldiers in the garden is a nightmare, no question. I sometimes take soldiers out in the sunshine for a nice photo, and I just know I'm going to lose them, or drop them on the path, or a stray gannet will swoop and take them away. [Jackdaws! - aaargh!]

      My (older) kids had a sand-pit when we lived in Morningside, and they used to deliberately bury their dinky toys and similar - We eventually paved it over, but archeologists will be finding this stuff for thousands of years. I even used to get attacks of the horrors wondering how many lost soldiers lived in the bottom of Don Featherstone's sand-table!

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  5. My big book of Britains Toy Soldiers 1893-1932 by James Opie says that the average price of a box of 8 infantry or 5 cavalry was 1 shilling in 1914...
    Looking at what HG says he played with... some games using more than two hundred men and six guns...
    I am going to guess at £3.00 for the military toys and possibly another £2.00 for the animals and civilian types he used in Floor Games...
    Of course buying them at Gamages you would save a penny halfpenny on each box...
    As for what they would be worth now...
    I imagine that the have all been well played with and are a bit knackered... the prices that I have seen for toys in such a condition go from £4 to £7...
    So maybe £2000...
    But.... if you factor in that they were HG Wells’s toys... who knows!!!

    So there you go... I am such a toy soldier geek...

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Aly,
      Not a geek just an enthusiast! If you have a look through your book it will make reference to the over the counter figures not sold in boxes but individually which is where the prices I got, however a strategy used even in those days was you couldn't get all the figures individually some were only available in boxes - diabolical!
      Whatever the price good old HGW spent quite a bit on his collection - sounds familiar

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    2. Thank you gentlemen - you have done handsomely! Even using his wooden projectiles, HGW must have taken the heads off a few hollowcast soldiers, and I think that movement was limited by time, so there must have been a mad scramble on the floor to get deployments finished, which must have generated a bit of collateral, you would think. The pictures I've seen of HG's actual houses never look too palatial, do you think the servants were expected to keep any heads they found in a safe place, for repairs? Damaged soldiers, reportedly, were melted down in an old spoon if they were beyond hope. Did he do home casting? heavy-duty conversions? Was he a scrappy in his spare time?

      I spent a little while today looking online for a decent edition of Little Wars / Floor Games with the pictures included. A number of them are print on demand, which always worries me a bit. I was stupid enough to buy the Echo Books edition some years ago, which comes with no diagrams or illustrations, so my confidence is shaken. This is not unlike buying a road atlas with no maps. I think the Dover Books edition should be OK...

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  6. One of your Scotsmen is looking ever-so-slightly 'tired and emotional', Foy.

    I remember seeing some of Churchill's collection in a glass cabinet at Blenheim back in the 1970s. They were all super-expensive Mignots and Lucottes!

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    1. The braw lads are all as high as kites, Your Honour.

      I'm interested in Winston's soldiers - I know nothing about them, but apparently we in the UK owe our survival to them, so a little light research seems worthwhile.

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  7. No matter what HG's collection cost he could clearly afford it. The estimates seem about right compared to what most of us have spent over the years in modern money. I am intrigued that one of your friends has proven that his wargaming costs less than his wife's hair do's. That sounds like good solid survival planning to me

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    1. Agreed. Hairdo's makes me wonder what happens to all the nail bars and self-employed beauticians - also makes me wonder will our ladies start doing home perms again? Will we all look like wild people in a few months? Time to dig out all those WW2 haircut jokes.

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