Figure Series

When collectors talk about their favorite hobby of collecting composition toy soldiers, they usually refer to the 7 and 7.5 cm scale. These scales have been the most collected sizes for many years. The reason is probably that these types of composition figures are the most common and they are easy to collect. Also there exist enough catalogues to identify which models have been produced. However this size stands at the very end of the pre Second World War history of manufacturing composition figures by Hausser and Lineol. Many other sizes were produced prior to them. Some for longer times, some only for a couple of years until they were replaced by a new series with a different scale. This is quite astonishing, because the development of a new model and the forms for producing them, were expensive items. There is a theory that Hausser and Lineol always tried to make their models a little bit larger then their competitor's models. But, why in this case did they first produce the large series (17 cm by

Lineol and 10 cm by Hausser) which both companies dismissed in order to produce the 6 and 6.5 cm series. The most logical reason to me is that both companies produced whatever size sold best and the market also developed some kind of fashion for the scale of toy soldiers.

From all the sources of known manufacturer's catalogues it is possible to identify quite a few series. The results of this are given in the following tables. Please note that the series are in ascending order matching their probable manufacturing dates.