JonBeezantines

Big thanks to Rob for sending over these photographs of some of the JonBee Byzantine range. I gave Rob a big tin of these years ago and though my memory is nowadays as fuzzy as my eyesight my feeling is they look better in photographs than in real life. As you will see the archer is very similar to the Greek slinger, while the spear and swordsman share common (Airfix) ancestry.

JonBee 20mm Listing

I'd meant to put this up before Chistmas but the cached document (if that's a computer term - I may just have made it up) to Vintage20Mil had briefly disappeared. Anyway, it's back now so here is the JonBee listing as best we were able to assemble it.

Looking down the list I'd have to guess that the Greek-looking officer type I posted a picture of earlier is actually the Macedonian heavy swordsman.

These little chaps are from the Greek range, clearly, but whether they are Greek Officer throwing Spear or Spartan throwing spear is another matter. I'm favouring the former, if only because the Garrison 20mm Spartans had a different style of helmet.


Assyrians AA 1 Noble, full mail, firing bow
AA 2 Standard bearer
AA 3 Light infantry throwing spear
AA 4 Heavy archer firing bow
AA 5 Light archer firing bow
AA 6 Heavy slinger
AA 7 Light spearman
AA 8 Light archer
AA 9 Light swordsman
AA 10 Standard bodyguard swordsman
AA 11 Standard bodyguard clubman
AA 13 Assyrian charioteer
AAC 1 Mounted spearman, armoured
AAC 2 Mounted archer

Persians AP 1 Officer on guard with sword
AP 2 Standard bearer
AP 3 Immortal with spear
AP 4 Light infantry standing with spear
AP 5 Light infantry charging with spear
AP 6 Light archer firing bow
APC 1 Mounted spearman
APC 3 Camel archer with shield

Romans AR 1 Tribune advancing with sword
AR 2 Centurion with sword
AR 3 Eagle bearer advancing
AR 4 Legionary advancing with spear
AR 5 Legionary standing with spear
AR 6 Legionary charging with spear
AR 7 Light infantry with javelin
AR 8 Archer firing bow
AR 9 Light infantry slinger
AR 10 Praetorian guard spearman
AR 11 Praetorian guard swordsman
AR 12 Light infantry swordsman
AR 13 Roman spearman, throwing
AR 14 Roman auxiliary
ARC 1 Mounted spearman

Egyptians AE 1 Pharaoh firing bow
AE 2 Standard bearer
AE 3 Heavy infantry charging
AE 4 Light infantry charging
AE 5 Light archer firing
AE 6 Charioteer
Egyptian Chariot (For use with Airfix horses)

 
(Macedonian heavy swordsman with a PB range Persian standard bearer in for scale. As you can see the JonBee figures are pretty small. The Greek hoplites in the first photo could easily pass for modern 15mm figures)

Gauls AG 1 Chief charging
AG 2 Standard bearer
AG 3 Heavy infantry with sword advancing
AG 4 Light infantry with sword
AG 5 Light swordsman
AG 6 Archer
AG 7 Swordsman with winged helmet
AG 8 Spearman with winged helmet
AG 9 Spearman
AGC 1 Mounted spearman with shield
AGC 2 Mounted javelinman

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

Macedonians AM 1 Standard bearer
AM 2 Heavy spearman advancing
AM 3 Heavy swordsman
AMC 3 Cataphract

Normans N 1 Norman advancing with spear
N 2 Norman heavy archer
N 3 Norman light archer
N 4 Dismounted knight with sword
N 5 Dismounted knight with spear
NC 1 Norman Knight with spear and shield

Anglo-Saxons A 1 Anglo-Saxon axeman, fyrd
A 2 Anglo-Saxon spearman, fyrd
A 3 Anglo-Saxon swordsman, fyrd
A 1 Standard bearer

Byzantines AB 1 Officer with mace
AB 2 Standard bearer
AB 3 Heavy spearman
AB 4 Heavy swordsman
AB 5 Heavy archer firing bow
AB 6 Heavy archer, helmeted
AB 7 Javelinman
ABC 1 Heavy cavalry
ABC 2 Light mounted archer

A further 11 cavalry figures were added including Huns, Goths and Mongols unfortunately we have not yet been able to find further details.

For it's time - c.1966 - this would easily have been the most comprehensive range of ancient figures available (if you ignore the German flats used by Tony Bath and others, that is), In fact even by modern standards it is pretty comprehensive.

Robin Hood Prince of Thebes

Some more figures from the Minifigs JonBee range. Above is a Greek officer and below some rather nice one-piece cavalrymen.

I have to say that I am rather fond of the old OPC cavalry. That's probably because I've lost count the number of paint brushes I've ruined down the years by hurriedly setting about undercoating two-piece cavalrymen before the superglue has actually dried properly. "Sets in 30 seconds" my arse.

The Greeks of Sherwood?

More figures form the JonBee range. These have have oval bases and are not as obviously Airfix Robin Hoodish as the others. The helmets are very nicely done.

Some of the figures have that characteristic early Minifigs marking on the base - an attempt to engrave the serial number using little pin pricks. It's hard to read on S Rangers but on these it's impossible.

Hoist up the JonBee (Part One)

A couple of rather nice hoplites from the Minifigs JonBee 20mm range. Like the slinger this is a conversion of one of  the Airfix Robin Hood figures. Below I've placed one next to a PBs Persian to give an idea of the size, which - obviously - is kind of at the HO/OO end.

Well, I'll Bee Damned

At one of the first wargame conventions held in the mid-1960s in Southampton, a wargamer from Stockton-on-Tees in the north-east of England turned up with a box full of figures he'd made. Charles Wesencraft was amazed "We all had our armies of Airfix plastic Romans and there was this chap with these beautiful little metal Greeks and Persians". Another man who was impressed was Neville Dickinson. Dickinson had just bought a figure company, Alberken that made Hinton Hunt sized 20mm Napoleonics. He'd moved Alberken from Nottinghamshire to Hampshire and changed the company name to Miniature Figurines The wargamer from Teesside was John Braithwaite and Dickinson hired him to design Ancient figures for Minifigs. The result was the 20mm JonBee range.
The range was short lived - probably in production from c.1967 until c.1969 when Brathwaite started his own figure company, Garrison and Miniature Figurines launched S Range. They don't feature in any of the 1960s Minifigs catalogues and the listing I have for them was laboriously compiled from adverts and figure reviews in Slingshot and Scale Models.

The JonBee range is, I think, the most obscure of all the ancient ranges that features on this site, yet they were created by a famous designer and produced by a company that was soon to be the biggest manufacturer of wargames figures on the planet. Why then were they so cloaked in mystery, missing from catalogues and rarely advertised? A glance at the slinger above may offer a clue. He is plainly converted from one of the peasant figures out of the Airfix Robin Hood set. I wonder if the British toy giant noticed?

More on this in the coming weeks....