Three Steps to Heaven….

Altogether now…”Now there, are three steps to heaven…” So sang Eddie Cochran (and Showaddywaddy back in 1975) but in this case it refers, literally, to the steps I have taken in respect of Eric’s WW2 collection. I have no idea why this particular song should have come to mind only that getting the car full of stuff into the man cave involved, yes, you have guessed it, three steps.

Step 1.

From the car to the ‘office’ - the desk at the top is my workstation for work or, as my boss whimsically describes it, where the magic happens….

Unfortunately the office was not big enough for everything so the stairs were pressed into service. It was all going up there anyway!

Step 2.

After what felt like having climbed the north face of the Eiger - a veiled reference to the umpteen number of times I went up and down the stairs - the entire collection sits proudly blocking the landing with an overspill into the bedroom on the right

Step 3.

Finally, everything is in the man cave. The table you see is full underneath as well whilst wooden trays of 1944 British and Americans round along the left.

Trust me, this looks a lot worse than it is as Eric tended to follow the Amazon style of packing for much of this collection. A myriad of boxes that are too large for the contents - yes, there is some minor damage to a few vehicles - and are in poor condition with crushed sides and all sorts. Just visible in the picture above are some of the nine cucumber boxes Eric had used - he also made extensive use of them for the 18th century collection - some of which have the date of 1994 stamped on the side…

I had a chance to take a slightly closer look at what there is as I was lugging it up into the man cave. Obviously I will have a better idea once I can spend some time with all but a provisional list looks something like this:

1940 French including Colonial types

1940 Belgians

1940 British

1944 British - Infantry and armour

1944 British Paratroops

1944 Polish Paratroops

1944 German SS - infantry and armour

1944 German Volksgrenadier

German Falschirmjager - not sure which end of the war yet!

German Infantry - again, not sure which end of the war yet!

German bridging unit

1944 German Coastal and Fortress troops

1944 British 14th Army

1944 US - infantry and armour

Russian heavy artillery

With all of these in addition to there is a ton of support and command, recce, AT, engineers, AA and artillery of every imaginable calibre. Everything is organised, as far as I can see, to brigade level and upwards for use with Rapid Fire. 

There seems to be a lot of Britannia figures and vehicles and whilst a big chunk is painted the amount of unpainted stuff is considerable. If you need five Pershing tanks let me know…

There is also a box of Ottoman Turkish artillery for the 17th century as well as a selection of traction style heavy artillery tractors.

Did I mention the German cavalry regiment plus support?

This is going to be a huge undertaking to sort out and also to see what, to be frank, is unlikely to find a home. There is a substantial quantity of Eric’s conversions - some of which work better than others - that as Bob Cordery pointed out, would be great in an imagination style environment.

The great sort out will start this weekend and the first order of business will be get the nationalities in their separate piles and also to replace some of the more damaged boxes.

By the way, there are three Matchbox/Revell Jagdpather kits still on their sprues but without decals.

This is going to be fun. A lot of work, but fun….