A LOOK AT THE BRITAINS TOY CATALOG FROM 1979

[@AllThings80s]

Did you play with Britains toys when you were younger? Please let me know in the comments.

[@treetheodore6906]

Thank you.

[@nicholasmarshall3191]

I was born in 1966 and lived near Brighton as a kid. My childhood was superb, with Airfix and Britain soldiers, etc, bringing me many, many hours of enjoyment.

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@insertuselessname]

Cor once you hit army soldiers in that catalogue me and my older brother had some of them it brought back late 70s start 80s memories of us having a mix of plastic and metal soldiers memories I'd long forgotten.

[@AllThings80s]

Glad you enjoyed it 👍🏻

[@bryanobrien2726]

My aunt gave me about 30 WWII Britains soldiers as a gift when I was young . One of the best gifts that I ever received . I received the British S.A.S. set with the red berets , some British infantry , American infantry , German infantry , and Japanese infantry . They ended up lost in a move sadly . I remember there was a high end toy store that had a glass case full of the individual figures and you'd just point out which ones you wanted to the clerk to buy them . They were like $2 per figure at a time when a bag of 30 cheap plastic soldiers was $1 and that came with a tank , so the Britains figures were really something special that I'd never even hoped to own . I did repurchase the S.A.S figures as they always won the battles that I had and were my favorites hands down .

[@bryanobrien2726]

Looking at the figures right now , the S.A.S. figures have FAL rifles so they were not WWII .

[@AllThings80s]

While it was always tempting to get the bag full of cheap plastic soldiers, you always felt like a champ when you got yourself one Britains soldier for the same price.

[@williamstevenson4694]

I never had these as a kid. for the same price as 3 britain soldiers you could get a box of Airfix or Timpo 1/32 soldiers.But these were the best as they were all ready painted. I do have a collection of them now ,not big but enough to make me simile when i look at them. You know dean we were luckly to have been a kid when toys were made beautifully, for great toy lines. and you also new what you can buy to finnish a line because of these catalogs. Piece of vintage history that catalog forsure. Thanks for the video dude will..n.z

[@AllThings80s]

Yup, we are lucky that we got to enjoy the best time in the history of toys.

[@applehead6179]

This is a nice walk down memory lane. I had alot of Airfix toy soilders. The S.A.S Airfix figures were brilliant.

[@AllThings80s]

Nice 👍🏻

[@UsualmikeTelevision]

Fantastic catalogue of Britains. They had world building down to the letter. I believe the designers back then were our age now and new a good thing. Great Video Dean.

[@AllThings80s]

Thanks Mike. Yes, this was from a time when toy companies really did care.

[@pkredbrooke1772]

Thanks for sharing! I had completely forgotten that I had a full set of the American Civil war figures for my wooden fort at around age of 8 in 1982. Happy days

[@AllThings80s]

Yes, those were the days. 👍🏻

[@tonyyero7231]

Greetings from Florida USA, this took me way back to the 70's growing up in Boston, Massachusetts...the Catalogs were great with the Deetail Soldiers and all their models.Their Herald models were great too and zoo animals. My favorite was the Waterloo set and all the British old world figures. 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@AllThings80s]

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it👍🏻

[@CraigAlanMurray1977]

Hey Dean, another super video, thanks! I never had any metal solider figures, however I did have lots of the cheap plastic bags of soldiers/ tanks etc…. My Nan and mam would buy them for me at our local paper shop and I honestly would play with these for hours… just fantastic! Ahh the memories!…. Back when a paper shop was a go to for all your pocket money toys….. styrene gliders/ yo-yo’s/ action Jack/ card games like snap/ matchbox/ water pistols…… and if you weren’t after a toy…. There was a plethora of comics, 5p crisps and proper sweets like Treets/ chocolate cigarettes/ he-man jelly’s and golden cups….. at Christmas it got even better!.. I remember asking my mam for a 4ft Steve Davis Pot Black snooker table for Xmas, because I seen it in the paper shop🤯… just fantastic😀👍👊

[@AllThings80s]

So glad you enjoyed it. The paper shop was the place to be and every single thing you just mentioned was my exact childhood as well. Nice one 👍🏻

[@265justy]

I have collected lots of the Britains Tractors and farm machinery from that era.. One of my earliest childhoid mems was my Dad giving me a Britains Ford 6600 and green trailer set.. I was around 3 or 4 years old sometime around 1982 /83 ish..

[@AllThings80s]

Excellent. 👍🏻

[@twin30mm86]

Love looking through the old catalogs, Dean. Great trip down memory lane. I've managed to collect a lot of my childhood Britains toys. Also Timpo figures, Crescent diecast military and Herald Knights. Personal favourites are the German Scout Car and Kettenkrad. Like most vintage collecting, its a rabbit hole but a real nostalia rush.

[@AllThings80s]

It's all about the nostalgia 👍🏻

[@chrisvarney1407]

Thanks for bringing back some memories Dean. I also had the German motorcycle and sidecar along with the 2 man sub craft.

[@AllThings80s]

Nice 👍🏻

[@BlackArroToons]

That small catalog is in excellent shape, and with some great detail in the pages with the farm animal sets, as well as the soldiers and other items. Nice! Thanks for showing it. Cool vehicles and nice to see the figures with good details too with the paint. In the US, growing up, they were either all green or tan, but I never saw them painted with details. Cool Medieval stuff too!

[@AllThings80s]

Glad you enjoyed seeing it. 👍🏻

[@RobStarwars-ty6hx]

Definitely brings back memories for me Dean. What a really cool Toy catalog. Still got some of those Indian toy figures.

[@AllThings80s]

Nice 👍🏻

[@Ed-eq5kd]

Great trip down memory lane, thanks Dean. Coincidently, i also had the 2 man sub given to me on my 6th birthday. Simpler times, would probably be considered "boring" to children nowadays.

[@AllThings80s]

Glad you enjoyed it. You're absolutely right that kids today just wouldn't appreciate how much fun it was to play with these. 👍🏻

[@dezt5108]

Great video Dean. Many happy memories playing with Britains toys. Me and my brother had quite a collection of the farm yard. I have a picture of me on my birthday, in August (on a beach somewhere in the UK) getting the big red combine harvester! Sadly we sold it all for around £15 in the mid 80's (and spent it all on sweets 🤦🏻‍♂️)

[@AllThings80s]

I'm glad you enjoyed it 👍🏻

[@Buratino-500]

Playing in the sandbox with toy soldiers, yeah great memories! I did not know branded versions of these toy soldiers existed . I only knew the supermarket versions, these were inexpensive; perfect for army building ;-) Thanks for the video!

[@AllThings80s]

Yes, I would spend hours in the sand playing with the cheap plastic soldiers as well. Those were the days. 👍🏻

[@Retrotoyguysi]

Awesome video, I still have quite a few of my old Britains figures and would say that if you can find some they are definitely worth picking up, they display really well. It was great to see the booklet, lots of memories there, thanks for sharing 👍😀

[@AllThings80s]

You're welcome 👍🏻

[@PhilAJones77]

Great video. I had the pig sty - not thought about that since the early 80s! Also a few other figures rang bells such as some of the Indians. Great memories.

[@AllThings80s]

Glad you enjoyed it. 👍🏻

[@MoparMcNeer]

Very cool catalog! I always loved seeing all the collection catalogs available from all the different toy lines way back from when I was a kid. Well I can't say for sure I had any of these toys, I know they were several American counterparts that were very similar that were in my collection or in my toy box at some point for sure. These figures are very reminiscent of the Warhammer figures that I was infatuated with when I was overseas in the '90s. The miniature figures on bases are very similar in overall look, although these were obviously painted and actually looked to be pretty decent quality too. A very fun and nostalgic look back Dean. The variety that this company produced was pretty impressive to say the least. Thanks for sharing with us, and if you do start collecting again, hopefully you're able to find the military ones that you were most interested in from World War II without too much issue.

[@AllThings80s]

You can tell just by looking at this catalog how much attention to detail Britains put into their toys. If my memory is correct, I was actively collecting these once I got done with Star Wars in 1984 and I didn't really play with them as such, but I would set them up in mini battle scenes. I definitely would like to start collecting them again.

[@chrissyj.6783]

I had the scarecrow and a couple of the farm animals. I remember the tractors had detachable cabs and you could remove the drivers too.

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@retrocynical5209]

Wow great memories fantastic video, had loads of the WW2 figures. Spent a fortune on them.

[@AllThings80s]

I think we all did back then. 👍🏻

[@retrocynical5209]

@All Things 80s True I think we did.

[@AllThings80s]

@@retrocynical5209 👍🏻

[@davidfindlay878]

I had a Britains tractor and farm implements: they were easy to add on and some had quite complex mechanisms. I also had a lot of Britains animals (both domestic and wild). I loved the Deetail soldiers - I had British Infantry, German Infantry and some Americans - but they were quite pricey compared to the 1/32 scale Airfix soldiers, so I had a lot more of those.

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@SecretOfMonkeyIsland784]

2:14 - I remember owning that red Massey Ferguson Combine Harvester as a kid, must have been around 1987-8 era, so they sold them quite a while after this catalogue was issued. I wanted it just as combines were cool, but agree you would probably get most of this stuff thrown back at you by a kid in 2023 "WHAT IS THIS !!!!!" lol.

[@AllThings80s]

Exactly 👍🏻

[@benstutley2904]

Hey Dean! Great toy company & catalogue to discuss, loads of memories there1 :) Apologies for being a bit of an interloper, but All the Best Dude! :)

[@AllThings80s]

Thanks Ben, I'm glad you enjoyed it. All the best. 👍🏻

[@jaws666]

Looks amazing catalouge....helicopter on the cover is the Huges model 300 series and it was one of these that was used as the rescue chopper in jaws 2 that my namesake pulled under the water

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@jaws666]

@@AllThings80s im everywhere.🤣🤣🤣

[@Footplate2012]

My Mum used to paint these figures for Britains. A box would be delivered containing a gross of them (144) and she'd be paid a ridiculously low amount of money to paint them before they were collected. I remember her doing the panda, the cowboys, and the US Civil war figures. She maintains to this day that it ruined her eyesight.

[@AllThings80s]

@@Footplate2012 That’s really cool that she was involved in the production of these figures, but definitely not cool that she was underpaid and potentially ended up with sight issues.

[@maxvideoentertainment8706]

I used to paint the cheap plastic soldiers and they looked pretty good. They sell buckets of them in the pound shop now I might just try that again.

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@obirobkenobi3599]

I used to love the brightly coloured space range. The bright yellow spaceships etc

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@brianjohnson5063]

I had a mix of toy soldiers the green and the metal base only a few of them. And a green Ww2 Cannon used match sticks to fire out of it

[@AllThings80s]

Yes, I used to fire matchsticks out of it as well. 👍🏻

[@Marktactical1975]

These brought back great memories👍

[@AllThings80s]

Glad you enjoyed it 👍🏻

[@destructarr]

There were four figures I found at a store in another city, I don't remember where, maybe Savannah GA, when I was a kid. This would've been around the second grade for me, so 77-78. They included the Scarecrow from the farm sets, the Keeper with the meat from the wildlife sets, a man with a pipe and a rifle, and a sheep herder. I've still got them. I paid 50 cents for each of them -- big money for me then. They are plastic figures on plastic bases. The Keeper's meat on a stick is removable and I lost it at school. We went back to find it on the weekend and we did find it outside the door of the school entrance. I don't know if I was lucky to have found it or unlucky to have lost it in the first place.

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@nodarkthings]

That triggered some distant memories, especially the WWII stuff. I must have owned a few of those!

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@edwinsmith-jones6205]

The more common Deetail soldiers such as WWII (German, British & U.S.) infantry & Civil War soldiers are pretty easy to pick up at toy fairs, here in the U.K., and inexpensive ranging around £3 to £5 each loose. I had the U.S. Jeep as a kid, a present from my Grandmother, with it's 50 cal' machine gun and working sprung suspension.

[@AllThings80s]

Nice 👍🏻

[@aincer2097]

I love these figures. It was my biggest spend - took all my savings. Hamleys sold the soldiers individually at about 50p at that time. I picked up so many that the store clerk packed them in one of the red counter pack box. That started my collection. When we came back to the US, I brought them in my carry on bag… my parents claim I set off the metal detector at Heathrow. I still have them and several of the vehicles, the mortars and cannons. I always thought the British motorcycle was an MP. Due to space I don’t have them on display right now but when I did I had them with the Marx Navarone playset You can find them on eBay but those in good condition sell out quickly. Britains still manufactures them. I picked up some of the Germans - my American and British troop outnumbered my Germans. The current figures I just didn’t find them as good as the originals but I may be biased.

[@AllThings80s]

I've seen the modern versions of these figures and they don't look good at all. 👍🏻

[@carausiuscaesar5672]

Have a lot of these Britains including the rare French Foreign Legion gatling gun crew.🇨🇦

[@AllThings80s]

@@carausiuscaesar5672 👍🏻

[@darthwizzywizard]

That’s impressive. I have some of the Knights. I think I had the odd piece of farm equipment. 😊The WW2 Soldiers I don’t think so at all. I had the cheap plastic ones you get in a Connivence store 😢lol. They were still great though 😊

[@AllThings80s]

Yes, these types of toys were great. 👍🏻

[@subraxas]

9:48 - I recently watched a documentary about the history of Games Workshop and the associated Citadel Miniatures, and they stated there that the two main (but not only) reasons why the company switched from metal and resin miniatures to plastic ones in the 1990s were, firstly, the technology which allowed back then for greater detail and accuracy in plastics (I believe that the metal and resin minis have, however, managed to catch up to the higher standards in this day and time), and secondly, the affordability for the consumer. The latter advantage meant that GW/CM could afford to sell the minis cheaper and this consequently meant that more people could afford to buy them AND in larger quantities AND more often than before (there was even more to this, but it is specific to the wargaming and RPG minis, and not the kind featured in the video above; plus, this comment's already getting a bit too long). 🙂 In the end, this "swap" greatly helped out with the global boom of tabletop wargaming back in the '90s. P.S. - Was the company "Britains" named "W.Britain" (after their founder) before the 1970s?

[@AllThings80s]

Yes, it was previously known at W. Britain. 👍🏻

[@subraxas]

@@AllThings80s OK; thanks for the reply!

[@AllThings80s]

@@subraxas 👍🏻

[@travelswithjasonf1463]

Cor this bought back memories Dean when I was a kid I had that alot of them britains soldiers and vehicles and knights cowboys and the American civil war soldiers. I was one of them lucky kids who family aunts uncles grandparents and mum would get me them plus I used to get pocket money £5 a week which was £10 as mum and dad was separated so you can guess it lol. and got alot of my toys out of my own money plus others ways 😉 if you know what I mean bad boy I was till a was 10 than I stop all that bad boys stuff

[@AllThings80s]

Hahahaha, you bad bugger....LOL 👍🏻

[@travelswithjasonf1463]

@@AllThings80s yep I was till I got court lol with a bag full of toys I had 5 star wars figures about 10 pks of star wars stickers and about 5 to 10 bars of chocolate 🍫 (can not remember how many lol) after that I never did it again once I got court Ps I was 10 as was still in junior school and not in high school yet

[@AllThings80s]

@@travelswithjasonf1463 LOL 😂

[@diamond66ist]

I would recreate massive bloodthirsty battles with my soldiers with tanks and planes , ok so off to the paddocks to replicate a typical farm scene !!!! not got the same level of excitement for me .

[@AllThings80s]

LOL 👍🏻

[@leebush4053]

I had some of these. The military figures moved on to the modern armies. British looked as they were in the Falklands. The figures were a big toy of their day. They were compatible with the Matchbox and Airfix counterparts provided they had been painted. I think each Britain's figure was priced around 89p each. Really good toys that could take being played with. Couldn't give these to children now. As you say the parents. Racism, climate parents would find fault and report you to the police.

[@AllThings80s]

I actually had the British Paras with the red berets that must have come out in the early 80s as they weren't in this catalog.

[@leebush4053]

@All Things 80s yes. I forgot about those. Wonderful toys and our generation had WW2 grandparents. Still very relevant in those times despite it being over 30 years since 1945. A box of airfix or matchbox was around £1.50/£2. A box had maybe a dozen or more inside. Humbrol paint and came to life. Not quite Britain's. Good compatibility. I had the Torpedo sub and the British commando dingy. You'd also pick these up for penny's at Jumbles. My commando Dingy was from a jumble complete for 5p or 10p. Better days

[@AllThings80s]

@@leebush4053 Better days indeed. 👍🏻

[@LuisDelaFlor-l6u]

Genial...me gustaria que añadieran posibilidad d e traducir al español latino Un abrazo a todos

[@AllThings80s]

👍🏻

[@brianjohnson5063]

Had some farm animals walls and fences

[@AllThings80s]

Nice 👍🏻

[@jaws666]

Dean " i remember having a few cows" Me "yep and the biggest cow you had was your now ex /1st wife".....

[@AllThings80s]

LOL 👍🏻

[@jaws666]

@@AllThings80s 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@jaws666]

Well done on your pronunciation of "Korps"....it bugs me no end when people,espescially those who should know better,pronunce "Corps" (or "Korps" in the case of Germany) as "Corpse".....the "p" and :s" in Corps are silent.

[@AllThings80s]

We were taught that in school and it just stuck with me. I honestly thought everyone knew that was correct pronunciation.

[@jaws666]

@@AllThings80s you would be surpeised the amoumt of people who pronounce it as "corpse"

[@AllThings80s]

@@jaws666 I blame the teachers.......lol

[@jaws666]

@@AllThings80s yep