30/12/2022. My mother did this crib display for Christmas. She decided to put some children and a circus in as well, but it looks nice. Argentinian Nativity set, Heyde Arab market figures. Britains and Wend-Al camels. Wend-Al Elephant with children, Crescent children tea party and some Britains circus.
Platinum Jubilee photos.
A great weekend at the market celebrating an absolutely marvellous Jubilee 4 day holiday.
7th July 2021.
I am off to Wembley for a historic night tonight. Thought I would post this now before the alcohol and atmosphere take over.
This is the real deal “three lions on a shirt”. If we win this tournament these figures will go straight into my collection. Prices of Lions in the market will probably go up.
28th June 2021.
Finished updating the site. Mignot, Hocker and various other new figures have been added, including many unboxed Britains sets.
I have just purchased a very large collection of Mignot, Imperial and Hocker figures. All are mint boxed sets. It will take time to sort out but I will start to put them out soon.
You may notice my face-mask with the toy soldier design so I should be easy to spot.
A rare version of the mask is also available with the oval based figures on it.???
Latest news. Website.
11th May 2020. Latest news website. Thank you all very much for your support and your
orders. I will get in contact with you all individually about payment and postage, but here is a rough guide to how this will work.
Payment will be via my iZettle machine. IZettle is owned by PayPal. The machine is normally used for transactions in the market, face to face but has a customer not present link. The sale amount is sent to you by sms from me. you then follow link instructions to proceed , enter your details and confirm. (you have a receipt option open to you at this time). I receive an sms saying sale has been confirmed. I at no time get to see any card details or pin numbers. This is important because if I did I would have to go through numerous forms and red tape to store peoples card details , which I do not wish to do.
I will pack, weigh postage and contact you with a final amount. I shall proceed to do all parcels via Royal Mail , recorded delivery to start with. The option to use DHL is also available.
don’t forget to supply me with wants lists. If I purchased collection I will check the wants lists out first before posting on the Internet.
Latest news people.
Harry spent 8 days in hospital and overcame the corona virus. He mentioned how he found the more simple foods the easiest to eat and was eating boiled eggs, something he had not had in a while. This is for you mate, boiled egg, bread soldiers and lead soldiers. Where to start.
Juanita always wanted this policeman, looks a lot like her husband Scott. Even more so now as rumours have it that he has put on about 10Lb during lockdown. Keep him off those chocolates Juanita.
I have had many enquiries about my young assistant Jeremy (centre of Photo, glasses on). He is in lockdown at the moment , but in good health and sorting out his collection.
See my review on bestbitsworldwide.com/ten-best-london-portobello-market-antiques
Rare figure sighted.
Rare sighting of a very unusual, certainly unique figure in Portobello road, March 2020. Although I have seen this figure before, not in this pose You normally see this figure in a much more multi coloured uniform. The figure comes with an original soundproof box. Awaiting reasonable or unreasonable offers.
Many thanks to Daniel for allowing me to put this post on . He is a true sport and
a gentleman.
Website update.
Latest news, Portobello Road.As mentioned on my homepage I am in the process of updating the site and organising asystem that I can can sell , via my site , on the internet. I have never done this before, neverbeen on EBay and do not even have a PayPal account. Up until recently I thought SEO was a rank in one of the armies from around the world.
I have spent the last month learning how to improve the website using articles and Seminars and finally have most of the stock on display. I have to balance how the descriptions in the site look between the serious collector (who would want more detail) and customers in Portobello or new collectors just starting (who would probably want less detail) In the near future figures that will appear will be the type serious collectors will be looking for.
It will take time for me to organise a system for payment, packaging a posting. This will be a gradual process as I want to get this right from the start, and as we are self isolating it may take a few weeks before this part will be up and running. Look forward to any comments via Email.
At this point I would sincerely like to thank Scott in Canada. I mentioned this to him the other day and he sent me a very long email , extremely informative with detailed points to consider for an internet business. This took time and I really appreciate it.
Thanks Scott and I note point 20 where I should link my site only to relevant toy figure sites. I will not link the site to shady gambling sites in Moldova (keep that separate for my
own use) 😳
Fun dealing in Chicago.
One of my holidays last year was a trip to the old toy soldier show in Schaumberg, Chicago
last September. My beautiful partner of 20 years, Claire (vegetarian) did not join me as she did not fancy spending days just looking and talking about toy figures 😥 I was therefore forced to spend the trip with really good friends looking at toy figures, eating steaks and
drinking beer 😀 .
Joe Saine is a good friend and dealer whom I have known for around 25 years. We were discussing some figures he had for sale but were a bit off on the price. He said that for the price i stated , I would have to come to his display room with a Mexican wrestlers mask and scare him to accept the price. Even the purchase of the T shirt was not enough.
I never give up. Scott Townsend (Cockney Scott) who was with me in Chicago, knew the situation and brought over a Mexican wrestlers mask from the USA for me. If Chicago is on this year and I can possibly make it. Watch out Joe, I am coming for you. Daniel is in the middle of the photo, I am the handsome one on the right.