Famous Collectors

It is recognized that if collectors of toy soldiers share a passion for history and the re-enactment of battles and historical events, their heteroclism is no longer to be demonstrated. Famous collectors (sometimes de Lucotte) with very different professions have marked the history of the figurine. Here are a few examples:

Winston Churchill : This man, one of the major personalities of his century, owned in his childhood nearly 1500 toy soldiers, many of them Lucotte figurines. His father brought them back to him during his travels in France.
“I had ultimately nearly fifteen hundred. They were all of one size, all British, and organised as an
infantry division with a cavalry brigade. My brother Jack commanded the hostile army. […] the toy soldiers turned the current of my life.“

It is possible to see an illustration of this collection at Blenheim Palace in England. A friend of W Churchill’s, Paul Maze lent part of his Lucotte collection to exhibit them to the public at the palace.

Jacques Perret : If it is not proven that he was a collector, it is amusing to note that the author of the novel “Le caporal épinglé” refers to the house Lucotte in his short story “La mort de mon grand frère”. He writes in it :

« The itinerary included at least two attractive stations: the heraldic engraver on signets and signets, who worked in a shop on rue de Richelieu, and the Lucotte house on rue des Saints-Pères, the Mecca of the tin soldier […]. Thus I lingered on reviewing the last figurines of the Lucotte house, the grenade thrower, the servants of the crapouillot, the machine-gun nest, the stretcher-bearers; there were even bodies lying down, hors de combat, but in postures studied to suggest serious injury rather than death. »

Roger Pierre : The famous French actor and humorist of the 50-60s was also a passionate and a collector of toy soldiers. He also made an appearance on France 2’s 13h news in 1998: Video