CBG Mignot

The same gestures,
for two centuries…

Founded in Paris in 1785 and based in Anjou since 1994, our workshop has been perpetuating a great tradition of making toy soldiers for more than two hundred years.

Each of our figurines is cast, assembled and meticulously painted by expert craftsmen using procedures handed down from generation to generation and where the hands and eyes of the artisan have kept all their importance.

The smelter uses his ladle to remove the metal in fusion from the melting pot (It is a skilfully prepared lead alloy) and pours it into a heated and talked mould; wait a few seconds….open up and its finished.

The figurine is removed from the mould and is trimmed to remove the uneven edges using delicately handled files and rifflers. Its final shape will then appear and weapons, headdress and instrument are soldered with a minuscule iron.

Once the figurine is finished, it will be hardened in a sealing primer and painted with great care with a sable brush that only has a few hairs.

All these operations are carried out by hand conscientiously and with skill that only long experience can give the artists in our workshop. Here, nothing is industrial, nothing is "technical" (in the modern sense of the word), there is no "production line".

The fundamentally traditional character of our production means that none of our figurines looks like another and each one of them in some way is an original. The hand of the worker can always be seen.

Such personalization removes nothing from the historical accuracy that is one of the major principles of our workshop. The final advantage, and not the least for the collector: these are rare pieces due to their slow production process.