More wooden blocks

In Belgium there are shops called "Kringwinkels". You donate your stuff you no longer have a use for, and they sell it again at relatively cheap prices, possibly after some repairs or cleaning up. I guess the concept does exist in many other countries as well.

There are two such stores relatively close-by, so I regularly pop in to see whether they have anything that can be useful for gaming. Last week I bought a wooden block set, priced at 3 euro. Could be a handy additional set for my vintage wooden block set I described earlier.

The brand is VERO, and apparantly was a toy company from former East Germany.

Imaginations in 42mm (4)

Yesterdat I also finished 4 cavalry figures for my 42mm army. The gloss varnish really came out well, and give the figures the impression of shiny toy soldiers.

My question now is whether I should do something to the bases. I varnished them as well - for me it's fine as they are right now, but I am so conditioned that wargaming figures should have "proper" bases, that it still feels a bit strange to me.


The last image shows 2 old toy soldiers - lancers - I acquired during a garage sale many years ago. I have no idea about the manufacturer or how old they are, but they fit size-wise perfectly. I'll probably clean them up and repaint them in as close to their original colours as possible.

Imaginations in 42mm (3)

I finished the 3 infantry units & 1 artillery gun for my late 19th/early 20th century imaginations campaign. I applied 2 varnish coats, one spray-painted mat varnish, then a gloss varnish applied with a paint brush.

I was not entirely sure the gloss varnish would work out ok, but it did. I have the practice of first trying the varnish coat on a few figures first, before applying them to the whole bunch.

I am quite happy with the results. Below you see them, using my vintage wooden block set to build a small fort.

And now for something entirely else ... wooden blocks.

I have a soft spot for old toy soldiers. I have collected quite a few over the years - mostly flats, but also some other types. I still haven't played a game with them, but at some point, we will do that.

Old toy soldiers also require vintage scenery, and one of the candidates for setting up a (fortified) city is the wooden block construction set pictured below.

The wooden box

The contents. This is only the top layer of blocks, there is another layer underneath.

This particular box has been in family for roughly a 100 years. It once belonged to my grandfather as a child (which places it roughly in the 1910-1920 period), and I also fondly remember playing with this particular set when I was a kid in the 70s. As such, the box and blocks have seen some wear and tear, but miraculously, only 1 piece is missing. And I know exactly what piece, and I know roughly when I went missing, because it was still there when I was in charge of this set as a kid ;-)

The box doesn't mention a manufacturer, and only mentions "Architecture Marocaine" on the boxlid. Some pieces indeed are shaped based on some geometric shapes as seen in Arabic architecture, so I guess there must have been other boxes available with other themes as well.

Anyway, it seems like the right kind of toy to put up some Wellsian game in the future. Below you see an image from "Floor Games", a predecessor to Little Wars (and both books are in my collection). Lots of wooden blocks!

Little Wars and Floor games in my gaming room, along with some old toy soldiers.

Photo from Floor Games (Bob Cordery's site)