LEAD SOLDIERS AND TOYS

This collection includes a potpourri of children's toys that have become through the ages, collectors' items. There are selections from Europe as well as the United States. From France there is a lead soldier mold, a wood and brass cannon and a Butler doll in armor with a wooden body and composition face. A delightful musical, mechanical fort made of wood with revolving soldiers comes from Germany.

Highlighted in the exhibition is a group of very rare, pre World War I figurines representing the Royal Army Medical Corps. It includes stretcher teams, eight wounded soldiers, four nurses with rounded skirts and three officers with swords. Another group is assembled to reconstruct a country scene; the blacksmith with his anvil, the shepherd boy with his lantern, the stable lad and the country clergyman with a bible in his movable hand are complemented by a village idiot.

This exhibition features several dioramas of various sizes. There is one suggesting the interaction between Cowboys and Indians and another recreating a color party of the Irish guards. Others feature a farm, a coronation coach, a circus and a zoo.

One of the largest pieces is a United States infantry camp scene with fifteen infantrymen, two metal wagons, two horses being groomed, a flagpole replete with a flag, a campfire, a mess table with five diners, and two horse teams.