Jack Scruby was one of the pioneers of American wargaming providing a miniatures across a wide range of scales and historical periods. Scruby used RTV molds made of silicon rubber which allowed some level of undercutting on figure sculpts, something not possible using molds made of metal. He offered a well printed catalog and sold figures for a nominal price either by mail or through his store.
Additionally, he wrote a number of rules sets, edited and published several magazines on miniatures gaming, organized a club, as well as one of the first miniatures wargaming conventions ever held.
The figures seem relatively uncommon on E-bay and are probably interesting as much for the collector as the gamer. The figures I have seen are reasonably well proportioned with a toy-like appearance. There is little surface detail and just the simple outlines of face, hands, and equipment. Surface detail is lacking. Nevertheless, figures are reasonably proportioned. There is no sense of gnomishness.
I imagine that at the prices he sold these at, there are a lot out there, likely tucked away in boxes. They are one of the oldest wargaming figure sets made in the US.
Back in the 50s and 60s, the perfect scale 30mm which in the end never really caught on except in a back handed fashion when 25mm transformed into 28mm.
The Scruby figures are pretty simple and rather plain. They have a toy-like appearance and the poses seem a bit stiff but overall they are respectable figures. There is not much surface detail but enough to allow a reasonable paint job especially on figures this large.
One thing that should be apparent is that Jack Scruby offered a lot of historical ranges in a lot of different scales.
Valiant had during the 70s focused on naval vessels including a range of space ships for wargaming. This is a selection of 1/1200 ships from their Spanish Main range. The ships are highly detailed as one would expect for this scale. Ships appeared to be either British or Spanish with some generic vessels and a galleass with either square or lanteen rigged sails. The galleys available appear to have been part of the smaller scale Napoleonic range and sadly did not match the ornate galleass.
Though quite old, it appears that the Valiant molds are still in use and these ships can usually be found on E-Bay. The ships are sturdy and put up with a reasonable amount of abuse except for the foremasts which have a tendency to topple with the slightest pressure. These are good for Armada games, piracy on the Spanish Main and similar things.
