Miniature Figurines British Foot Guards Grenadier Advancing in Shako
BN 54 (intermediates) in centre, BN 54s (S Range) on flanks
To my knowledge very little has been written about what has come to be called (or at least I think of) the Miniature Figurines "intermediates" range, These filled a gap between S Range and the later (and still current) fat a*sed chunky dwarves.
I haven't found any mention of them in any catalogue, in any review, and have no recollection of them ever being issued or seeing them with a chance to buy them.My local wargames shop (imagine such a thing) went straight from a display of S Range figures to the new (current) range with nothing in between - this would have been around 1973 or 1974.
Having said that you do see a fair number of them on the second hand market so they must have been in at least restricted circulation for at least a short while. The Intermediates are much closer to the S range figures (with which they work quite well to bulk out original S Range figures) than the later (and current) ones.
They seem to have been Napoleonic foot figures only - I haven't seen any examples from other ranges. They are very slightly larger proportions that the S Range figures but haven't gone what I will call full chunky dwarf. They can be recognised by this but most clearly that the codes are embossed in the top of the base, like the current figures, and not scratched on the bottom of the base. It also gets confusing when you find some examples of S Range figures with codes on the underside of the base where the S has been omitted from the end of the code, and even one or two which seem to have been given completely the wrong code.
Goya has kindly sent me some photos of S Range figures and their intermediary counterparts, but I need to have a further think about how to present these, and to take some photos from my own collection which will take some time and a lot of rummaging about in the loft ,and then a fair bit of photographing and posting. So this will happen it just may take some time. Ideally I would make a number of posts with three photos for comparison - S Range, Intermediate, and Current - for each figure, but I am unlikely to have current ones and these are mainly available in the Miniature Figurines on line catalogue with Caliver Books..
So this post is half a pace holder and half a statement of intent. If anyone has any more information on Intermediates in the meanwhile I would be glad to hear from you via comments.
