Well, now I've caught your attention......this is a blog about gaming miniatures, both old and new school but with a leaning towards old school. I've been in the hobby since the 70s and seem to show no sign of stopping in the foreseeable future.....
Flash Gordon - home casting kits from the 1930's...
This is via a good hobby friend, Andrew Campbell.
'Random old school, and I mean *really* old school, miniatures discovery of the day.
Apparently there was a company called the Home Foundry Manufacturing Company back in the 30s, possibly through the 40s or later, which sold home casting kits for miniatures.
Most were historical (for casting toy soldiers), but at least one set dipped into the sci fi realm - a Flash Gordon home casting kit. Who knew that home casting of sci fi figures went back that far?'
My Google skills have only brought up modern casting foundries so have, so far, turned up no more information... over to you please readers!
Thanks to 'Joss Sticks on Jupiter' we have a link to painted ones!
The Flash Gordon serial debuted in 1936 so there were probably quite a lot of 'toys' out there at some point. IMDB has some more info on the serial here and, of course, YouTube has countless clips etc but you can see the entire first series here;
Miniature wise there have been (and are) a lot of proxy types. My favourite current proxy ones are those from Hydra Miniatures. There is a game from the Pinnacle Entertainment Group that includes a few minis here (sculpted by the great David Sonderquist of Bronze Age Minis who has the best John Carter series in his SciFi section). There are the (currently unavailable I think?) Jim Bowen sculpts from Monolith Designs. Brigade Games have a few as well. If you do 15mm gaming there are some nice Hawkmen and sled riders from The Scene. Paper ones for the RPG from DriveThruRPG. Let me know if I've missed any please...
These are great. :-) After much googling I found the public FB group "Vintage Metal Molds For Lead & Tin Toy Figures" - they have the catalogs for Home Foundry in the files section.
Wow! Thanks for sharing David. I love the Flash Gordon serials and yes, the 1980 film. I knew about these kits, some had very elaborate pouring rigs, but for some reason it never occurred to me that Sci-Fi molds might have been made. Now i have a new rabbit hole to fall down!
7 comments:
This is fascinating, really makes you wonder what other jems might be out there. Thanks for sharing it.
These are great. :-) After much googling I found the public FB group "Vintage Metal Molds For Lead & Tin Toy Figures" - they have the catalogs for Home Foundry in the files section.
Thanks Neil!
I sent you an email David, but I think I called you Dave. I hope thats okay.
Here's some pics of both the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers lines kinda painted:
http://alphadrome.net/forums/topic/13389-buck-rogers-and-flash-gordon/
Thanks David, I answer to most names! Great link. I've hopefully replied to your email.
Wow! Thanks for sharing David. I love the Flash Gordon serials and yes, the 1980 film. I knew about these kits, some had very elaborate pouring rigs, but for some reason it never occurred to me that Sci-Fi molds might have been made. Now i have a new rabbit hole to fall down!
Wow! Cool find.
Post a Comment