My thoughts exactly Garrison!, my first troops were Giant figures too,and have only expanded my love for figures all these years later. The greatest gift to me is that it opened a door OF discoverY FOR MANY different cultures from all over the world, and have given me a great love for history!. Thanks to all the great companies, and especially Strelets for their latest ACW line. GREAT STUFF!!!!

Totally agree, when I have had dark worries on my mind it has been great to go to my wargaming club and immerse myself in a game for a few hours. Just to go down the garden to my wargames room and fiddle about doing nothing in particular is an absolute joy. Now I have retired I never feel bored or at a loose end, in fact, I can't quite work out how I ever had the time to work because I have so many other things to do. The only worry is that I won't live long enough to paint the plastic mountain or my eyes and fingers will not be good enough to paint in 1/72nd.

What memories I do have with this hobby of ours!!! When I was 11 years old my mum told me that I was too old to buy all these tiny soldiers. I then had 1,034 of them, almost all were Airfix. So at High School, I was spending secretly all my money, buying more and more Airfix, and then Matchbox, Esci, Revel items and so on. All with my small weekly amount of money my mum was giving me for smth to eat at school. How skinny I was!!! And my mother never found out where these money were spending for.
Now I am 54 years old. My mother is an old lady, 84 years old. And I proudly have 46,087 tiny soldiers, among them thousands of strelets'. A collection that still grows... Yes I love this hobby (but not tell this to my mum...)

I'm getting lots and lots of laughs out of everyone's stories. This is a rather small Fraternity of ours, but I hope to read more and more!

A little piece of advice some of us have already learned the hard way - Don't ever get rid of your collections; just put them in a cool corner of your garage or shed. I've learned that if you ever have any doubts about keeping "anything", exactly two weeks after getting rid of it, you'll wish you had still kept it! Like an old favorite jacket on a cold day, Collections bring back that warm and fuzzy feeling in life.

I hear you Garrison, I really can't bear to throw anything away. Must admit that the vast majority have just languished in their boxes but every so often I get a new interest or inspiration and they are exhumed, painted and put on the table. One set that I never thought I would use was a load of 40 year old Airfix Foreign Legion who became the regular infantry for the colonial forces of the imagiNation La Republique de Kornucopia a few years ago. Much fun has been had with them fighting the forces of the Sultan of Mowabe and the dastardly colonial rivals from Karelia and Ruhritania! The other weakness I have is the desire to buy sets that I'm not actually interested in but worry that I might become interested but will have missed the boat and the sets will no longer be available. Mostly I resist but sometimes resistance is futile :-)

Collecting toy soldiers has been a lifelong hobby of mine.I don’t wargame with them but I find that the hours I have spent preparing and painting them has done wonders for my state of mind.
Unlike some others I don’t collect any specific era just whatever happens to be in the shop.There are as many attitudes to the hobby as there are collectors and at the end of the day it is your collection,your choices and so there is no right and wrong.