Musketeer
Released: 2019
RRP: £1.99 (FI?URES Series 16)
Rating: ★★★★
The FI?URES series offer some really excellent klickies but they are, of course, designed to be mystery packs. Apart from groping around packages in one’s local toy shop, the best way to get hold of a specific figure is to buy one from someone who’s bought the whole series and opened them to see what’s what before re-selling, normally at a mark-up.
I purchased this handsome fellow for €3.99 from a Spanish toy shop that had done just that.
The figure has flowing shoulder-length hair and a beautiful tabard, adorned on both sides with a silver and red cross and white trim, and white neck frill at the front. The azure colour historically recalls the place of the musketeers in the royal guard of the French king.
He has obviously been inspired by the movie representations of Charles d’Artagnan, immortalised in the nineteenth-century romances of Alexandre Dumas. So no musket for this musketeer!
But he does come with a dashing and original broad-rimmed cavalier hat, complete with blue ostrich feather (p/n 30281890), pistol (p/n 30095440) and rapier (p/n 30227912). A. particularly likes the feathered hat.
The musketeers trousers are navy blue, while his boots are a slightly darker shade of light brown to his hat.
His scabbard (p/n 30225842) will hold either the pistol or the sword but he really needs a baldrick to set his hands free. On this point A. remarks, “it’s not nice that he has to keep his sword out, as people will think he’s fighting”.
Experimentation shows that the tabard will accomodate the wider baldrick but it is a bit loose. Although it pops up slightly on his shoulder, his bob conceals this.
I recommend the gold baldrick (p/n 30218990), which matches the handguard on the sword.
The musketeer is an essential figure for any self-respecting collection of seventeenth-century Playmobil and so it’s a shame that he is concealed behind the mask of mystery that is the FI?URES series. He represents only the fifth time we’ve seen Playmobil dabble in this area, so we could be waiting a while until we see his like again.
EMPM
EarlyModernPlaymobil 