Trojan is a less known manufacturer that was based in the UK. I have not been able to find much information on them. It is not even featured in O'Brien's guide to foreign toy soldiers. And as far as production goes, they also don't seem to have generated that much output. Not only for WWII figures, but in general for toy soldiers across all time periods. I am only aware of two WWII sets from them: German and Japanese Infnatry. As you can see from the picture below, the figures were factory painted, although not with the most accurate color schemes. The scale is on the smaller side of 54mm. The sculpting is decent. My guess -not yet corroborated-, based on the sculpting, painting style is that they were in production around the 60s or so.
Trojan German Infantry
Definitely an interesting set, but more from the collector's standpoint due to its rarity. In terms of the poses, I wonder what the guy on the right is doing. He seems to be pulling out his pistol, but at the same time that he marches forward parade style. The man with the panzerfaust is a nice figure, particularly for its time, giving some variety to the usual poses. The prone machine gunner is my least favorite. He is a bit too thin and the front part sticks up. The officer charging forward is fairly nice.
Trojan Japanese Infantry
You don't often see this set and when you see it, it is often quite pricey, so I felt lucky when I was able to score one recently. I should say that I had only seen them in pictures, so it was a bit of a shock when I got them and realized that they are actually quite undersized for 1/32. At best they are 1/35, but they really feel small compared to the rest of my collection. The poses are decent and I suspect that I am missing a couple more. Unfortunately, the man on the left has the rifle tip broken off. I am sure that helped bring down the price. I'll see if I can repair it. The factory paint is still in fairly good condition. All in all, I see them more as a rare collectible worth having for the sake of completeness, than as figures I would want to mix in with the rest of my troops.
Trojan ANZAC Infantry - Part 1
These guys are hard to come by. A nice figure which adds variety to the ANZAC troops of which there are not that many options. I think I will have to touch up the paint, but once that's taken care of, he will be a fine looking trooper.
Trojan ANZAC Infantry - Part 2
Another lucky find. I seem to be getting them a drop at a time. I just wished it had been an action pose, instead of a wounded guy, but well, it is still good to gradually assemble the set, and this guy is in better condition than his mate.
Trojan ANZAC Infantry - Part 3
Here are three more guys that I was able to get a hold of. They came in a mixed bag of figures, so initially I did not realize that I had bought something special. I like these mostly because of their collectible value. The sculpting is OK, but you can tell that the manufacturing techniques of the time imposed certain constraints, like the man on the right holding his knife against his body. Not a very likely pose in reality. But still happy to have found them and enhanced the collection!
Click here to see more German Infantry figures
Click here to see German Infantry in action
Click here to see even more German Infantry figures
Trojan was a cheap British company that copied from many other, many of the Japanese poses ,Australia and German are actually copied of original Bruver and Sotorres Spaniards companies ,the prone WW2 german with light machine gun is base in Airfix pose
ReplyDeleteerwin
Thanks Erwin. Looks like now I have to look for Bruver and Sotorres... That's why the collection is never complete :-)
DeleteYeah you definitely have that right!!! I'm 61 yrs and an EX SOLDIER 3 REGTS BEEN COLLECTOR since boyhood ...and my education nowhere nearly completed FANTASTIC GENRE ! THANKS AGAIN
ReplyDelete