The end of a quest
MMP › Mithril in Middle-Earth › The Mathom House of Michel Delving › The end of a quest
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September 12, 2022 at 10:02 pm #49340
Hello to you all my friends.
I want to share my achievement with you today and my joy. First a little background :
I discovered Mithril back in 1994 at the same time I discovered the Lord of the Rings books and roleplaying games shops thanks to my mother. I will always remember the smell of old cold cigarettes mixed with salpetre on carved underground stone from thos authentic RPG shops back in the 90s (I suppose most of you remember those environements 🙂 )
I was young then (only 16 years old, and not a lot of money), and passionate with Tolkien and the aspect of those figurines… Vignettes and new dragons were not yet released. the last figurines to be released were the House of Elrond, around the M340 or so…I had scarce figurines, lots of holes, strictly nothing below M100 except the M62 Smaug box, and no more than a hundred from M100 to 350
In 1996 I decided to join the french Mithril Fellowship, thanks to those little papers folded inside the blisters advertising for the fellowship, and my mother , who helped me in my passion, paid so that I could order all the “special fellowship igurines” (MS225 to MS299 along with a little collector pin, and the tengwar magazines in french)…
I tried to focus since then on buying everything that my retail store was receiving, but Internet was not there, not all figurines reached the store, it was hard to come by… (I am still in contact with my store seller, “rolegames” in Marseille , which sells a lot of Mithril on ebay too , name is Bernard, we have more than 20 years relationship)
In 2001, I was older, and with more income, Bernard (rolegames) called me saying he had a very rare figurine to sell, from a collector selling his collection, and it was a M16 (without the sword…) he sold it to me for 300fr (50€ or so) , since then, I told myself I had the most precious figurine, and I wanted to gather all the collection, and my quest begun…
I kept buying everything (even asked ESPECIALLY for a given limited edition number of the LR to have the same “edition number” from LR1 to LR40.. which is 1051 🙂
As a guy working in IT, I began surfing on the web on the early versions of the Mithril site, using methods to bypass the “rules” that was redirecting all requets to mithril.ie to princeaugust.net (a rule that I contributed, early, since 2003 to eradicate, with lots of discussion with Michael and Lars… as all traffic was redericted to the french site and we were missing a lot of news….and releases. This is how I learned, surprised and upset, about the existence of CHRISTMAS figures offered to be bought only by Fellowship members) I was mad, because no way did Prince August France had ever communicated about those figurines in their news when I had talked to them (I got them on phone and they told me these were reserved for ENGLISH members, not french ones…. how rude! ) I bypassed them and contacted mithril.ie directly, (a girl, before Michael time, who was touched by my disapointment and accepted to sell them to me, along with the 5 tengwar in english , while in french only 3 exist) I also discovered the Myth’Images and Mithril Maniacs at that time and was amazed by their painting job, done by Jaques Philippe and Fabrice (though I did not know them at the time, but I envied them)
While navigating on the net, this way I discovered in 2004, the Many Mithril Pages forum, handled by Marc “Mithrandir” Campbell whom I befriended.
As a persistant hunter I asked him about the Christmas figurines, as I had managed to get all of them back in time from 1994 but… nothing before, which seemed odd as my research showed that Mithril did exist since 1988 and I had heard rumors of “promotional” stuff before the special sales beginning in 1994. Marc gave me this list :
Sadly, no, I don’t own the Xmas figures pre-1994. Like you, I just have the ones that were offered to the Mithril Fellowship. I did some research, and here are the ones that PROBABLY exist, but I don’t know for sure.
1988 Aragorn
1989 Isildur 28mm vignette
1990 Eowyn
1991 ???
1992 Galadriel
1993 IsildurWhen I saw that, stars shone in my eyes, I was at the same time mad , upset and passionate. While I was trying to fill up my collection with many contacts from shops all over France before going to ebay, I kept hunting down pictures of them… Mithril Maniacs provided the 1993 Isildur. The Tengwar magazines provided two others 1990 and 1992 though not by name. and also the ME2 prototypes (mentionned with the names of 5 others, apparently abandonned or converted into LO releases) So many artefacts to collect!!!
2004 was a key in my research : the 1991 was a mystery, Marc could not help at the time, and the 1989 name was odd… two real mysteries… then I found this on the “Juegos Sin fronteras site” :
Figuras de 54mm si no pone otra cosa. Solamente para Socios “Hermandad del Anillo”
Navidad ’88 Aragorn – n/d Navidad ’89 Isildur Vignette 32mm – n/d Navidad ’90 Eowen – n/d Navidad ’91 Patrick Sarsfield ? – n/d Navidad ’92 Galadriel – n/d Navidad ’93 Isildur – n/d https://web.archive.org/web/20070520203714/http://personal3.iddeo.es/juegossinfronteras/hermane.htm
So I learned about Patrick Sarsfield, even though without a pic… I did not even know who he was, but found a copy on the “Edman collection” 54mm of Prince August and finally got pictures of the original Xmas 1991 one.
I could continue with chapters and chapters… How I befriended Chris over the auctions for the unreleased warbands, how I lost the big auction when he put the 1988 Aragorn for sale, after having placed a bid of 1680€ (which I lost…) How Chris , in his generosity, sold me his own personal copy of the 1988 Aragorn, and also told me he had found last copies of the 1990 and 1992 Christmas which he sold to me…
How, three years ago, my Christmas 1995 Arthur was about to break at the sword hilt and I asked Michael if among the employees they had no old versions and Michael found one… along with a 1991 Patrick Sarsfield !! which he sold to me…
and until … last weeks, after several months of negociations with a swedish mithril fan named Karl Johan Frisk which discovered out of nowhere, the famous 1989 vignette, I finally managed ……
THIS
Almost 30 years of tracking… and passion in collecting those little treasures….
Now, my dream is almost come true, I only miss one known oddity… I do hope I will get my hands on it before the end…
I still have some time, I hope…
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You must be logged in to view attached files.September 14, 2022 at 4:17 pm #49345A passion well rewarded – and what is the missing ‘Oddity’? Has it been identified, or is it something that is known to exist but not identified? 🙂
September 14, 2022 at 10:59 pm #49346it is identified yes , I’ve talked about it at length years ago : ME2 Aragorn 🙂 (and also the MW337 Gondor officer on horse variant… which is the only variant I miss)
As for “other brands”… not oddities but hard to come by, I am now trying to gather up all the Time Machine refs done by Chris… which includes of course the Teutoburger Wald of which I have none… but also some others clearly identified as sculpted by Chris, both by Jim Corless and Chris .
I have completly achieved the whole Bitume Future Shock, and all the Characters&Friends and Foes, except for OR1 and some FG (which I have in mould counterparts) I have casted every “Fantasy” moulds too, and dungeon builder decor.
For Time Machine the list is as follow (I got provided good quality pitures for all of them which I will scan and post in the database, I will not include in the database the TMM refs not done by him so no wonder if not all numbers appear in the list) :
- All “Diorama Series – Teutoburger Wald” (DW-TW) from TW1 to 18 (some were made with sculpting collaboration with T Well and B Jacobson (like TW11)
- Some of the “British Colonies Series” (BCS) : BCS1-2-4 all others were not done by Chris
- Some of the “American History Series” (AHS) : AHS1-2-4-5-6 (others not by Chris)
- Some of the “Great War”Series (GW) : GW2&3 (others not by Chris)
- AW3 from the “Ancient Wars Series” (AW1&2 not by Chris)
- All the ‘Religion Series’ (RS1&2), and Nativity (RS-N) from 1 to 5
- unreleased Crucifixion vignette in 32mm (will post a topic about it soon)
From the list above, I personnaly possess : RS1&2, GW2&3, TW5, AHS4 and 5(wrong base) and prototype version of RS-N1, and soon crucifixion vignette
I got certain information that Chris did not contribute at all for “Zouave Series” (TMZ) and all “singles persons” (TMP from 1 to 32)
September 15, 2022 at 2:55 pm #49349September 15, 2022 at 4:58 pm #49353Those are actually from Grenadier (Fantastic Females from an Ancient World) though later reaquired by TMM which renamed them (Purity/Passion/Sacrifice) I have them too, in original metal… It was the only time Chris did a job for Grenadier actually.
though I wonder where you got the Chthuluh Statue, as it is an addition for the diorama certainly ?
September 15, 2022 at 7:30 pm #49354Gildor,
I was fortunate (silly enough? 🙄 ) to purchase the complete set (1-17) of the Teutoberger Wald sets from Jim Corless when he was still the proprietor of Time Machine Miniatures. It was one of those moments of madness when I asked him how much would the set be IF I bought the whole series.
Jim gave me a very good discount also throwing in the three ‘Fantasy’ sets that Chris Tubb had sculpted (at least one I believe was originally cast in metal for Grenadier?) of which I have incorporated two in my previous post.
When Jim passed the business on to Bob Stein Part 18 was finally released so I was able to complete the set. Although on ‘The Shelf of Shame’ for many years I have painted some of the figures and am at this moment awaiting delivery of an Osprey reference book on the battle so hopefully will make another start.
The little information booklets/sheets that came with most of the sets generally state who sculpted the figures, but not always specifically which. In the main though it is CT who has done the figures, but for example Ben Jacobsen has sculpted at least two of the horses (CT the riders), CT, Rendall Patton and Brian Stewart were involved with DS-TW 8, and on DS-TW9 CT, Jim Corless, Jim Hughes, Doug Cohen, Rendall Patton sculpted the figures with thanks to Eduardo of El Viejo Dragon Miniatures (Spain) for the use of the Roman Merchant/Vendor ‘Master’, amphorae ‘masters’ and other items of interest. Armand Bayardi also gets credit for allowing the use of dead trees, open crates and Barrel.
Hope this information may be of interest/help for your records 😉
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You must be logged in to view attached files.September 15, 2022 at 7:49 pm #49356wow David, this is great data info about the sculptors !
Could I ask you a little favor as I see you possess the kits, could you scan me the covers in color? and the leaflets you are talking about too?
I would be really interested in the digital version of those informations, (and the good quality pics of the covert art)
I miss lots of them in good quality
September 15, 2022 at 10:00 pm #49357The Cthulhu statue is a 3D print, a friend of mine is a big fan of ‘The Old One’ so I thought it would be a nice touch to add it to the scene 🙂
September 15, 2022 at 10:04 pm #49358Yes of course, I’ll scan what I have, the only box I appear to have missing is the DS-TW 17 box, but the information leaflet is there in the photo, and I will have to check to see if there was anything with DS- TW 18, but I think that may have been ‘finished’ by Bob Stein after Jim Corless had handed over.
We have visitors over for the weekend so will probably be next week before I can scan
September 16, 2022 at 12:29 am #49359I particularly miss the leaflets with explanations, and the TW5 and TW11 covers 🙂
I thought Doug Cohen was the painter, not a sculptor? I knew animals (horses and oxen were not made by Chris but Ben Jacobson, at least for TW11.
as for the Fantasy , they were referenced 9801-2-3 in Grenadier range (rebranded Fantasy Series FS1-2-3 in TMM)
the one in your diorama are
Grenadier 9802 ‘Princess Achmiri’ -in metal- (FS2-Passion -in resin-) 9802 : Princess Achmiri
Grenadier 9803 “Princess Shaaranon” -in metal- (FS1 – Sacrifice -in resin-) 9803 : Princess Shaaranon
one of the sexiest figurines Chris has sculpted, and in 54mm… though my preference still goes to M99 and not the Karagat character 😉
Please take your time there is no hurry 🙂
- This reply was modified 2 years ago by Gildor.
September 20, 2022 at 2:05 pm #49361Thanks for the update on the ‘Fantasy’ figures Gildor – Re Doug Cohen, I guess that like a few modellers/painters out there, there are some who also possess some sculpting skills (American modeller Bill Horan being an example of superb painting and sculpting ability), but I guess that this could also include minor tweaks and alterations that do not rely on a lot of sculpting skill.
If you pm me your email address (I have just tried to send an email with box-art, but it seems to have bounced back from both email addresses that I have for you) I will forward the pictures – I have box-art, but will scan information leaflets as well as Doug Cohen’s article on the series which was originally on TM’s website 🙂
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MMP › Mithril in Middle-Earth › The Mathom House of Michel Delving › The end of a quest