aboutus

Where do they come from ? From the minds and imaginations of these two people, who design, scuplt, cast, and paint -- everything!

Charlie Duval began collecting Marx playsets and Britains Toy Soldiers as a kid, and many of them ended up as casualties of war. Since he needed vast armies, he learned how to make more on his mother's kitchen stove, from no less than the master of miniatures, the late Jack Scruby himself.

Not so far away, Cheryl Whitfield was likewise collecting miniature playthings -- small horses, Disney characters, Marx playsets, and anything miniature she could get her hands on. Since she was seldom satisfied with the way things looked when they came home from the store, she would repaint her miniatures with hobby enamels or just build new ones with modeling clay.

Inevitably these two found each other in a French Quarter toy soldier shop (They are from New Orleans), struck up a friendship, then a romance which led to marriage. When their son was about two years old, they decided to turn their hobby into a full-time business, and that was twenty years ago.

Making toy soldiers is an old craft that dates back thousands of years to the time of terra cotta figures in Egypt, lead figures in ancient Rome, and countless variations down through the ages.

Little metal Men has the advantage of having such late-twentieth century facilities as a rubber vulcanizer for mold-making and a centrifugical spin caster to improve production--but the basic process is still the same:

A figure is designed on paper, then sculpted by hand. The mold is made by hand, the tiny pieces are cleaned and assembled by hand, the painting is meticulously done by hand with very small brushes. the end result is a tiny figure made individually to order, guaranteed to please anyone.

While we started with traditional military figures, we now also do an extensive line of figures for porcelain Christmas and Halloween Villages for people's holiday displays. "Santa's Living Room", featured on Little Metal Men Online, is one of our most enduring, endearing favorites.

So browse about and visit with us for a few minutes. We feel certain you will find something that wiill catch your eye.