"Lineol" small soldiers - WWII old???????

[Theodor]

Hello,

Just got today a few battle veterans. Seems they have seen real hard battles, because some have lost leg, other hand - and all have lost their heads They are tiny, so showing them in the "Tinnies" forum
These are figures of German soldiers, marked "Lineol" and Clastolin Germany. I believe they are from the 30's or the 40's. Am I right? Made of pappie-mache /I believe this is the matherial - if not wrong for the spelling/, with iron sticks inside for strength. One is marching with a rifle up, other has a drum, other has had a flag, I think, the last one is running in attack.
Well, my little soldiers are very much broken to be woth seeing, also my camera is not good. But I am really curious to see well preserved examples of such figures. Do you have?

[Vadim K]

Hi Theodore,

Just a brief intro, let me know if you need more. These are known as "composition" soldiers. They were produced throughout 30's and 40's by Lineol and Elastolin in Germany and Austria, there were some other minor makers who made similar soldiers, most notably Durso of Belgium. Basically what happened was that metal was needed for war needs, so toy industry had to improvise and come up with alternative materials. In the 60's and 70's Elastolin switched primarily to plastic.

Yours are in really dismal condition, even given their brittle nature, you can still find them in almost mint condition if you look hard enough. For example, here are two I recently bought:

a machine gunner

[Vadim K]

and an observer

[J Melvin]

Vadim, those are very nice. I own a set of the Luftwaffe band that was put out by Preisser in plastic. The pieces are very nice. There are some great tin vehicles of the wartime period though. I always drool over those.

[Theodor]

Thanks a lot for the info! And thanks a lot for the images of these great figures! I got mine only because were too cheap, all 4 for one dollsar from a fellow that usually supplies me with WWI-II photographs. But I think I will start hunting now for such, will start a new collection
By chance, do you know a site with pictures of such soldiers? Or even better - a site selling sucg soldiers?

[Ralph A]

Like this one?

[Vadim K]

Theodore, I sent you a PM.

Jack, I only have a couple of Preisser soldiers, but they are very attractive and still relatively cheap (I think I paid $8-9 for each on an average). I know those tin vehicles you are talking about, but the prices for them have gotten quite ridiculous over the last 5-6 years.