Many Mithril Pages @ Faerylands

I don't think I have one specific first Mithril.  My first Mithrils purchased was a bunch of small lots on ebay some time in 2003, but it's been fun ever since. 

I remember back in the 90's, maybe 1994 or so.... going to my RPG shop and seeing a whole wall filled with miniatures with a map of Middle Earth on it, getting a closer look , for the first time, I saw the world of Tolkien, which I really loved,  come to life in small metal figurines before me... That was an illumination. I had discovered the world of JRRT some year just before and I was very fond of this heroic fantasy stuff. I was with my mother by that time, also a Tolkien and Fantasy fan in general. we bought some mithril figurines among others... (i still have some of those "others" star wars or very raw and bad looking figs) but soon, I enjoyed quite much the precision and quality of mithril so I remained faithfull to Mithril.
My first purchases (I could not afford all of them indeed) were in the "Misty Mountains" series, something around M300 or so. If I remember well, my first figurine painted is the Hithaeglir Adventurer (M305)... I have never "repainted" it since that time, it's a memory... but you can imagine how "bad" this figurine can be painted... I never repaint my figurines... this way I can witness the progression in the techniques and quality of my works, even if it means that quite a lot of my figs are not "so well" painted...

Ha, one of my favorite Mithril stories is my first purchase!  I'd been a D&D gamer for years and had quite of few of the old Grenadier and Ral Partha figs.  I distinctly remember finding Mithril's rather odd, with the largish size and grey primer.  Being a huge Tolkien fan, I was intrigues.

My fellow gamer and best friend, Tony, and I had been buying a lot of Arab looking and Middle-east type figures. This must have been around 1989 or 1988?   I saw the M73 Caravan guard on camel, as an excellent addition to our collection!  A very fortunate purchase, as it turned out.    I don't recall seeing anything earlier than the Far Harad stuff in local stores.   Later I bought most of the Turin and Blacksword series, as those were my favorite stories. 

If I had only known then what I know now!  I remember seeing a nice wall of those grey primed figures at the shop, and only buying a few.  Later, around 1998, I was reintroduced to Mithrils at a game convention, caught the disease, and started a collecting rampage.   The rest, as they say, is history!

I'd rather say, thanks for this community to exist. I just put a little tool in place, I have not done much (in matters of MMP) it is a community work

as for discovering Mithril through RPG. It was the same for me. I discovered RPG and the use of lead figurines, I saw people using (and so I bought) some Ral Partha or Grenadier.. and Mithril... and indeed Mithril quality was far above all the others + it was tolkien related... perfect for me. But I never have, or will, play in Tolkien universe when it comes to RPG. Giving people the opportunity to modelize and alternate Tolkien universe is some kind of blasphemy for me... I thus prefer D&D worlds. at least, these are "meant" to be "built" and modified by playing them.

Well, when I were a lad, and all 'round 'ere were fields...

I saw an ad on TV for Prince August moulds. They had ads on TV back then, in Ireland. I'd seen Year of the French some time before, so I would cast English and French late 18th century figures and paint them as the Redcoats and French soldiers at Kilalla. I wrote away to Prince August and saw their catalogue. I remember being vaguely intrigued by the Goblins and Elves and Orcs. I had no idea what they were. Later that year, the year after, a family friend, while living in the US was rather amused by the media frenzy about Dungeons and Dragons and how it was driving troubled teens to suicide. Since I was a troubled pre-teen, she decided I would be perfect. So she bought me the Fighting Fantasy roleplaying game corebook.

Some time that following winter, my friend Ian McGuinness introduced me to Dungeons and Dragons, the real thing. I was sort of hooked. He told me about the Hobbit and so on. I was 11. It was my last year in primary school. It was a pretty hellacious time. I was looking towards secondary school with increasing dread. I wasn't much of a reader, then. My step mother loaned me her copy of the Hobbit, and I slowly made my way through it. On holiday in Cork that year, I finished (we went to Macroom on that trip, I think).

I read Lord of the Rings that summer, re-reading it all over the last week in august before heading to the dreaded secondary school. I escaped into Lord of the Rings, into the appendices. I grabbed out my casting tools and made a sort of wargames ruleset. That christmas I got the Grenadier Fellowship boxed set, and...the other one.

The following year, I started collecting the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings figures. I knew, on some level, that they were hideous, but they were "official" and they had a sense of movement (or something) to them. I kept all my figures in a big box, a mix of Grenadier, GW and Prince August fantasy. Sometime that year I discovered MERP, too.

But some time in the summer of 1988, I was perusing the figurine section of Easons on O'Connell street, and had this weird moment. Beside the Prince August figures was a range called Mithril. I thought I was misreading. Then I realised: these were MERP figures. By Prince August. Without the ugly clothes and stupid poses of those other figures. These would look the same as the prince august fantasy figures. This was great! I bought probably all of the first dozen figures.

And then, I don't really know. I never had time to paint them. I was frustrated with my painting abilities. It was the Inter Cert year. Then into fifth year and hell, before you knew it, it was the Leaving Cert and then off to what came next. Life went on.

In 2000, I was talking to my friend Tiina about The Lord of the Rings. the movies were coming and she and her brother were huge fans. I told her about these "Mithril" figures I remembered as a kid. I remember showing her the website in the cyber cafe where I worked, thinking "cool." That summer, I did my first freelance professional writing assignment and once again, I forgot about Mithril.

My moment of doom came at 3am in October 2002. I was trying to keep awake so I could meet my sister at the bus station at five am. I re-read this short fantasy written piece I'd done years before. I thought: hey, I wonder if Prince August is still going. And...they were. I wonder, I thought, if Mithril is still going. It was.  Then, as it started to get light, I thought: I wonder if Iron Crown is still going. That lead to me writing Cyradon. But it also lead me to buying the Battle Games in Middle Earth magazine on a trip home to Ireland...and a few weeks later, making a huge order from Mithril. And that was it, I was doomed.

Doomed, I tell you.



Gavin