This is one of the many toys and figures produced by the firm of W. Britain, who produced lead then later plastic figures and animals, all in the same scale. The quality of the modelling on these ‘toys’ was stunning as can be seen in the image below. The cavalryman was one of a set devoted to the American Civil War, launched in the mid-Sixties to replace an older range of solid figures. I was a real collector of these as a schoolkid (and still have a box full somewhere), but this is one of the few to retain the original packaging, which is a piece of work in itself.
As I discovered when I decided to try and replace the plastic dust window, which had begun to fall apart after fifty years. The card package designed to hold the figure nice and firm was a small miracle of card folding technology.
The details of the figure were printed on the bottom of the inner card stand, so when it was all fitted inside the outer case, these details showed through a cut out window on the base of the box. They were then sold three in a box to shops; these outer shipping boxes in turn had cutouts so again the figures could be identified (as seen on this box sold at auction recently). Note too the original price of 3s 11d in pencil on the box, they weren’t cheap toys. It was a frankly very over the top approach when a simple gummed label would have done, but typical of the approach to detail and manufacture many older toy firms lavished on their products in the Sixties and Seventies.
The package design and lettering in just two colours is really attractive, elements are clearly from the Sixties but with a bit of old fashioned style (hand drawn by the looks of it) as well, including the famous W. Britain logo. The product was of course designed and manufactured here, rather than being farmed out to poorly waged countries around the world as mostly happens today. Britains themselves went that way in the 1970s and the quality quickly dropped off. Today they survive making metal heritage regimental figures for the collectors market only but even these are produced abroad. They did have an entire archive which rather than gift to a museum they sold piecemeal at auction.
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