HAT 1870 Franco-Prussian war - Building a consortium

Do you remember the time when HAT announced that they would produce figures for the Franco-Prussian war? As a German, for me this special subject was great news.

Now I will give you a little bit of the story behind:

You know my friend Alfred from some of the dioramas on the blog. Alfred together with his brother Roland is working for a French military museum. Years ago the museums plans were to create a 1/72 diorama of the battle of Sedan 1870. The plan was to have a diorama with around 25.000 figures. They started painting and converting figures, asking for volunteers to help etc.

Strelets supported the team with the French Chasseurs Afrique from the Crimean war range. But beside the two Emhar sets of French and German troops no figures were on the market. Of course different sets of Zouaves which could have been used too.

Alfred then asked HAT if they would be interested in producing some figures for the war to get the units we didn't had so far - Bavarians, more Prussian line, Prussian Jäger and French in poses we needed for the diorama. HAT aggreed and we all were happy.

The sculptor started working an the first two sets were done (Bavarians and Jäger). Then he started at the French. Well, the poses we needed were standing around in reserve etc.

In the meantime the museum changed its mind. You know these modern museums. Empty rooms with a PC in the middle and maybe 3-4 pieces on the exhibition behind some glass. How I hate them....
The museums boss now thought it could be better to have something 3-Dimensional modern insteadt of figures. And the project was put on ice... In the meantime the museum has realised what costs this modern way would bring - and is thinking about a figure-diorama again:-))

Mrs. Jones is a good friend of mine and we talked about me buying the masters from him and casting them in metal. You can imagine that buying 24 masters at one time is an expensive adventure.

So I am trying at the moment to build a consortium of collectors who would like to help me here. So far I have 10 friends who offered 100 Euro each. Now I need 10 more and I can take on the subject.

Everybody who helps out will get the metals for 30 cent each and the profit from the official selling (will be 80 cent) goes into new masters or simply back to the consortium. Depends on what the hobby-friend would prefer.

If this all is interesting to you and you would like to help me safing these figures, just send me a mail at
wild-heindl@t-online.de

BTW, beside the 1870 HAT figures there are old Minifigs S-range figures which fit very well with 1/72 and it would be possible to get some Ulf Debbeler figures who covered this range too. So there would be enough stuff to build some armies for the war.

But now for those who forget how they looked like the photos of the masters