Vintage Britains Indian on horseback. Dated 1908

Hi
This is a Britains North American Indian (Mounted) with Tomahawk. They came in boxes of 5 with a mixture of Tomahawks or rifles.
Unfortunately as Britains Ltd found out the tails on such items were easily damaged and later Britains horse tails were fixed to main body.
This figure has the wrong tail, obviously damaged in its life time. This tail isn't stuck on it fits into the hole left by the missing one.

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Regards
Nick

These 1st grade mounted Indians are indeed difficult to find and expensive to buy in good paint condition with horse tail intact and moveable arm still present.

You're not quite right about the change to horse tail to one close to the body to prevent breakage - this change was only made on the fixed arm 2nd grade mounted Indian. The 1st grade moveable arm mounted Indians had easily broken sticking out tails like this until the end.

Hi. Many thanks for the correction.
Do you still collect? If so do you have a 'wants list'?

Yes I still collect. Lots.
The number of things I'd like to fill gaps in my collection, which is a very broad collection, would be too huge to make a list.
As one of my specialities is wooden farm & zoo buildings, and even with me now restricting this part of my collection to certain ranges, I don't even know what items I want, because no one knows what items were in those ranges, and I seem to know more about them than most.
Another part of my collection I'm always looking out for are minor UK makes plastics, where there are also still lots of unknowns. Especially interesting for me are the last few years of Hilco plastic production before they went bust in 1960, with many moulds going to Cherilea, some elsewhere.
And then there are colour variations, especially farm people - all those milkmaids in different colour dresses - and I want them all.

My wife would say you are just like me. Up until recently I collected nearly everything, postcards, badges, soldiers, coins, stamps etc... Now I have reduced this down to a few but still end up buying things I shouldn't. I enjoy the hunt...
I don't suppose you have ever come across a 'Steel Toy Maker' from Birmingham, one of the partners name being HARRIS. Found a long time ago mention of him in notes and censuses but yet to find any toys. (Related)

Beautyful old gem !!!
Imagine to have survived for so long and still looking so good, with just a little hair transplant !!!

I'll continue this thread with my Britains lead Cowboys & Indians (we can start new threads for Britains plastic C&I and other makes C&I), most of which are from their cheapo 2nd quality range, mostly early 1950s.

But first up, some 1st quality, including a mounted Indian on the other type of horse, with an equally vulnerable tail:

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Now some 2nd grade mounted, including a very basic cowboy just sprayed brown, and the two tail versions on the 2nd quality mounted Indian:

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Interesting

Now some more foot figures, starting with colour versions of the 2nd quality cowboy firing pistol:

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2nd quality Indian chiefs:

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More 2nd quality Indians, including the crawling Indian. There was also a 1st quality moveable arm crawling Indian (which I don't have ):

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And last for this post (one more separate post to follow), an interesting mix of Indian brave standing with rifle, showing 6 of the early type figure, 2 of which are in 1st grade paint, 4 in 2nd grade paint, and 3 of the later type figure:

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And finally......two 2nd quality boxed sets from the early 1950s:

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This one is interesting because two of the items in it appear not to belong there, but I bought it like this, so assume this is how it was sold originally. On the left is a 1st grade paint figure, and the holes in the backing card in the middle indicate there should be a mounted Indian there. Britains 2nd grade boxes often included anything they wanted to clear out that day.

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Nice collection.
Here is one I think by Heyde.
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Also some others not by Heyde...
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They're going to be tricky to identify, but I think I've seen photos of the chief on prancing/rearing horse somewhere. Maybe US made?
I'll check in Richard O'Brien's books ('Collecting American made Toy Soldiers' and 'Collecting Foreign made toy soldiers' - both well worth buying by this recently deceased US collector/expert)

Hi. Thanks again. The bottom picture of the two Indians I have seen somewhere but forgot to note it down. Was too busy looking for the soldiers in the reference books I borrowed.