Britains Toy Soldiers, 1893-1932

Opie, an antiques consultant in the U.K., offers a catalogue that spans the critical production years of England's leading manufacturer of toy soldiers, William Britain. With the collector's needs in mind, the author organizes the material by regiment and nationality, rather than by date of production, and cross-references the text with numerous black-and-white and color photographs to facilitate identification and further individual exploration. Serious hobbyists may warm to pedantic descriptions of hollow-casting procedures, painting and design techniques, marketing policies and research methods. But the reader who is only casually acquainted with this miniature world of ""vanished military pageantry'' will be put off by the flat prose and paltry historical detail. (October)