Pre-slotta dwarfs...in white metal - what do you think?

axiom

axiom

Baron
Hi folks, I sometimes help out IDing figures for a guy who buys and sells car boot sale / charity shop stuff. Warhammer isn't really his thing so I help him out and he has in the past sent me a figure or two.

Now, this happened last week; I ID'd a whole bunch of mid-late 1990s fantasy figures for him, and received in the post a nice little selection of pre-slotta dwarfs he randomly pulled out of his stock:

Dwarfs_zps72cfc4d7.jpg


Looks pretty good doesn't it; the White Dwarf himself and 4 C06 Northern Dwarfs. Except they're not lead - they're white metal.

So, my question to you all - was there ever a point where these were legitimately cast in white metal, or have I got some recasts on my hands?

(Note, no blame is being levelled at the guy who sent them to me - they'll have come in with a collection he picked up)

Any thoughts?
 
Do you have lead versions you can compare them to?

They look pretty sharp castings which is a positive. Could they be master castings?
 
Pretty certain they've got to be recasts. Even by the early 90's, all the preslotta production moulds were long gone, even the master moulds. (I know, i wanted a bunch of the C30 Amazons and checked *everywhere*!)

The master figures were still knocking around, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that a mould was made and a small, limited run was done in-house, but it's unlikely, tbh, these things were ancient history and officially forgotten about.
 
stone cold lead":uzu5iyw1 said:
Do you have lead versions you can compare them to?

They look pretty sharp castings which is a positive. Could they be master castings?
Click to expand...

Sadly no, I don't have lead versions to compare against. The casts are crisp, however there are also the dreaded double mould lines on one or two of them.

dieselmonkey":uzu5iyw1 said:
The master figures were still knocking around, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that a mould was made and a small, limited run was done in-house, but it's unlikely, tbh, these things were ancient history and officially forgotten about.
Click to expand...

We're talking long-shots here, right? ;)
 
axiom":18h6gkft said:
dieselmonkey":18h6gkft said:
The master figures were still knocking around, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that a mould was made and a small, limited run was done in-house, but it's unlikely, tbh, these things were ancient history and officially forgotten about.
Click to expand...

We're talking long-shots here, right? ;)
Click to expand...

We're talking instant dismissal and a P45 in the post. :lol:
 
Is there any evidence to suggest these figures were actually cast in the mid/late 1990s though? They could have been cast in the late 80s. Citadel were doing a number of "classic recasts" at that time. I have several examples including preslotta Broo.
 
axiom":2c4xvx7b said:
So, my question to you all - was there ever a point where these were legitimately cast in white metal, or have I got some recasts on my hands?
Click to expand...

I've got white metal Amazons recently from a seller that I wouldn't in general suspect of such a thing.
Detail is just as good as the corresponding lead ones (which I also have) and no double mould lines etc
 
And it's worth bearing in mind that double mould lines alone are not necessarily a sign of recasting. If a master model wasn't cleaned up properly then those mould lines will end up being moulded into the production run.
 
Wasn't there a time when lead was dropped in the US because of health concerns? I don't know how long ago that was, but could these be either a post-lead-scare mold line? Or a trial run for that?
 
they could be genuine

I picked up a few preslotta and even limited edition thrudds from the GW nottingham in the mid 90s all in the new metals with double mold lines.

There was thousands of minis in boxes under the gaming tables and you could just choose what you wanted. I remember picking up a preslotta white dwarf, toad dragon, 2 different thruds and a few other bits at the time.
They also had some of the TA series chaos battering rams for £65 each but I did not have the cash for them.

From what I remember they were trying out the metals and casting random molds up to see how they came out. Pretty sure they should not have redone the limited stuff but they did not care. I remember there being around 50 or so preslotta thruds in the box at the time for £5 each.

MD
 
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