This army of 26 old handmade, hand-painted figures with moveable arms, most holding weapons, are 100% fantastic. What I know is that the person I purchased them from found them in a rural estate in Southern New Jersey and speculated they might have been made by a member of the family for a grandchild at some point.
In spending some time with them, I am quite sure there were once more of them, maybe many more, as many feature colored squares on their backs that seem to connote affiliations--i.e. there are 5 "red shirts" plus a few others with dark blue squares on their backs, 2 "blue shirts" with royal blue squares, one "white shirt" with white square, etc., making one imagine there were once roughly equal numbers of all? There are also a number with no squares, both armed and unarmed. That, and especially the inclusion of a few women (including one hatted, who looks like quite a proper townswoman), a priest all in black, and the three figures in yellow (one uniquely seated and who I'd speculate are meant to be Jewish) makes me wonder whether there wasn't a town, perhaps in addition to a battlefield, that these figures once inhabited.
So altogether a bit of a mystery but a tremendously evocative one! They are in very good shape, with arms for the most part moving up and down easily to lift weapons or not. The tip of the very long spear held by the figure in purple shirt broke off at some point, there may be a bit of loss to the tips of a few other weapons, and one red shirted figure has a chip on one side of his base. See photos for details of all! Figures range in height from 3 1/8" tall x 1 7/8" wide (largest, not including weapon) to 2 3/8" tall (smallest), with most about 3" tall.
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