Thursday, 31 July 2025

Minifigs JonBee Ancient Greeks - possibly!

 

Back in the dawn of time (mid 60's), in the early days of Miniature Figurines John Braithwaite, who later formed the machine behind Garrison Miniatures wargame figures, sculpted a number of historical pieces for Neville Dickinson in that currently popular 20mm scale that would allow their use alongside Airfix figures. It has to be said that a lot of the JonBe minis were possibly derived from converting said Airfix minis... The JonBee listing is taken from the wonderful Parumpugna blog, a veritable goldmine of old school joy.

https://parumpugna.blogspot.com/2013/01/jonbee-20mm-listing.html

As and when we can get confimation of the minis origins they wll be added to the Lost Minis WIKI;

https://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=JohnBee

Greeks AGr 1 Officer throwing spear

AGr 2 Hoplite advancing with spear

AGr 3 Hoplite charging with spear

AGr 4 Phalanx hoplite with long spear

AGr 5 Light archer firing bow

AGr 6 Macedonian phalangite

AGr 7 Peltast

AGr 8 Spartan hoplite throwing spear

AGr 9 Slinger with shield

AGrC 1 Mounted spearman with shield

Very few of the below minis have codes, this seemingly was a later thing however I've added what codes there are (some of which were added in en by their previous owner. If you know what everything is please comment below or email me! These came together in a lovely job lot so some may be other manufacturers?

MF AGr 8.5

G10 and G11



G9s


G7


G5


No markings


No markings


AG2


No markings on the rider



ACH5s


Any thoughts etc please leave a comment or giveme a shout on enquiries@deartonyblair.co.uk


2 comments:

Rob Young said...

OK. My tentative take... 1st figure 'S' Range, the G10 and G11 look like the first Warrior production figures - note the cut outs on the shields. The infantry I've bought in the past as 'S' Range except for AG2 - haven't seen that figure fore, 'S' Range code is for a standard bearer but frankly I have never seen an 'S' Range Greek standard bearer - ordered some once, got Carthaginians. The horses look like typical 'S' Range horses. Honestly though, early Minifigs are a nightmare!

Rick Priestley said...

What Rob says! I don't know much about the JonBee figures, but from what I've seen on Harry's site they are stylistically much more like the early Garrison figures than the later Minifigs (Dick Higgs I presume). I have a few of the same figures and always assumed they were 'S' Range in various incarnations!