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The Toy Soldier Company: Who we are

The Toy Soldier Company is the largest mail order company in the world specializing in new and old plastic and metal figures. Our catalogs and printed update fliers offer 54mm, 60mm, 70mm and HO figures from over 170 different international manufacturers, as well as accessories, books, our popular TSC playsets, painted and animated figures. Our website features almost 15,000 different items.

We are a full-time mail order operation since we began business in 1984, with a courteous, knowledgeable staff serving customers year ‘round. We are generally able to ship out orders within 5 days of their receipt for charges and money orders, and two weeks for checks, on which we await bank clearance before shipment of goods. We encourage you to criticize our faults and promise to make good on all reasonable grievances. After over 25 years of business, we believe the customer ALWAYS deserves the best.

The History of  The Toy Soldier Company  (updated 11/10/09)

By:  Jamie Delson, proprietor

I have been a dedicated collector of toy soldiers since 1952, when my father gave me my first set: a Britains Herald Highland marching band. In my youth I played with soldiers on the living room rug, in my bed when sick, on the rocks of New York City’s Central Park, in the back seat of the family car, on vacation and in my parent’s attic, where my collection resided until I moved into my own apartment. I always kept up with the hobby while pursuing a writing career, then found (to my surprise) that I could make a living out of the passion I felt for these little men. After all, it’s not every little boy who can advance from a setup on the kitchen table to a 10,000 square foot toy soldier warehouse, as I have done in the past 57 years.

Although I made my living as a screenwriter and journalist for 20 years after finishing college, my passion for toy soldiers always led me to spend my spare time and cash on them. As a child, I did setups and played wargames with friends and alone, developing a set of wargame rules for 54mm which I played from high school through the 1970s.

But at the end of that decade I began playing wargames with a different slant: instead of fighting massive battles with thousands of figures, the game evolved into more of a skirmish/role playing extravaganza. This led to a close look at my then huge collection, did I really need 100,000 figures if the game only required a few hundred guys?

In 1984 I decided to sell off part of my collection, so I took ads in a few collector’s publications and published a catalog on my IBM computer, expecting to make a few extra dollars (which would, naturally, be put into new soldiers). I called my venture "The Toy Soldier Company".

When I began the business, there was only a tiny market for little men. It was limited to a dedicated group of collectors who were only able to purchase original American figures from "The First Golden Age" of toy soldiers, the 1950s, 60s and 70s. There were no recasts available at that time, and even the thought of a company starting up to sell newly-designed soldiers seemed unimaginable.

My first catalog reflected this market, and contained items solely from my personal collection. But as the size of my American "inventory" shrank with each sale, I realized my competitors had me at a disadvantage: all had access to a wide world of tag sales to which I had no access. How could I restock my shelves without taking road trips to the garages of the Northeast states?

I had to take a different course, create a niche apart from the others in the field. I had been quite successful at selling off old English lines, such as Airfix and Timpo, plus that great Italian maker, Atlantic. Why not take this strategy farther? As there were no American manufacturers turning out quality products, I began importing the few ranges of first-rate plastic soldiers being produced by such European companies as Starlux, Preiser, ESCI and Britains, as well as such soldier-related toy lines as Playmobil.

A fledgling market was beginning in the metal soldier field at this time, establishing itself in the great void left by the demise of Britains lead manufacturer almost 2 decades earlier. I picked up such "new" lines as Tradition, Dorset, and Marlborough, which still remain active sellers 26 years later.

Shortly thereafter, to complement the imports from the current manufacturers with which we were opening up the American market, I set out on a course to locate, contact and persuade companies which were no longer producing soldiers, but which still owned the molds capable of doing so, to do limited production runs for which I was convinced there would be a market.

With all the figures flowing in from Europe, the company was expanding and needed new quarters. At first, I filled my apartment. Then I stored the overflow in a neighbor’s closet! (The Toy Soldier Company Annex). A real warehouse was required. We expanded into an 800 square foot artist’s loft in Brooklyn, in an area called DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). This lasted only a year before we moved again, this time to a 5,000 square foot warehouse in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Soon after we moved into the new space, we concluded several deals to obtain tens of thousands of reissues of plastic figures made by such European companies as Dulcop and Jean Hoefler. At the same time, we began offering plastic recasts by Marx, which became (and still remain) one of our most popular ranges. Following up our successful sorties into the metal model field, we picked up more manufacturers such as Britains Metal Models, Imperial, Steadfast, Bastion, Under 2 Flags, VC Miniatures and Reeves.

Over the following years we were able to pick up dozens of other manufacturers of plastic reissues, such as Timpo, Reisler, Reamsa, Jecsan and Oliver, while also closing deals with individual entrepreneurs all over the world who have sold us anywhere from one to dozens of plastic recast sets from such makers as Cherilea, Charbens, Marx, Ideal and others. Always on the lookout for more metal lines, we expanded by incorporating Alymer, Britains Vintage Replicas, Imrie/Risley and Conte Collectibles.

As a result of efforts by myself and the other leading dealers in this field, all the nurturing and development of this market in the 1980s paid off. Toy soldier collecting had grown and matured to such an extent that by the end of the 1980s new, original plastic soldiers began to appear. Such entirely new manufacturers as Accurate, Classic, Barzso, Armies in Plastic, Toy Soldiers of San Diego, BMC, IMEX, Dragon Models, HAT, and others (none of which existed when I was a boy) have fed this appetite for newer and better toy soldiers. The explosion of interest in these military miniatures has resulted in what many are now calling "The Second Golden Age" of toy soldiers.

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