The cover of the 1990 Modelers Mart catalog. They had been in business 17 years at this time. Al Younghaus was the owner. The catalog was 120 pages long and was black and white except for a 16 page color center spread. Great stuff!
Remember this? Back in my day Modelers Mart was one of my all time favorite gaming stores! They were one of the largest US suppliers of historical miniatures, buildings and terrain during the 80’s and 90’s. This was pre-Internet specialty retail and their business model relied on catalogs, phone calls, walk ins, letters and mail order. No websites here! It’s hard to imagine doing business that way now. Well, anyway, for a time they were the kings of all that was historical miniatures!
I lived in the Tampa, FL area thru most of my high school years (and trips home from college), and I remember spending a lot of time and money at Modelers Mart. I usually found an excuse to drive over there and see what I could spend some money on. It was always a great time and still am very nostalgic about Modelers Mart….hence this article! I’m sure you feel the same way about an old hobby shop where you lived.
Modelers Mart had a few locations over the years, but I particularly enjoyed their “peak” Safety Harbor location. When you walked in you entered into a standard hobby store, full of magazines, painted figures, rule books, etc. I often picked up my copies of MWAN and The Courier here. There was also a gaming room and offices, but the highlight of any trip was their warehouse full of miniatures!
The back cover of the catalog. I like the “how to” picture on painting a Federal officer.
They had a two story warehouse full of every historical miniature range at the time. Remember ranges like: Alliance, Action 200, Empire, Firefight 20, Gallia, Geo-Hex, Hinchliffe, Lyzard’s Grin, RAFM, Ral Partha, Triton and Yucca? Well, they had a warehouse full of that stuff! I remember buying hordes of 15mm Heritage ACW and Napoleonic figs, 15mm Mini-Fig British Colonials (Anglo-Boer), 15mm Mini-Fig WW1 and imported UK terrain pieces. It was amazing just to wander around and browse through the thousands of figures and buildings. It truly was a gamer’s paradise!
They also had stacks of books and rules and I think I bought my copies of Tactica, Koenig Krieg, The Sword and the Flame, and many other rules there.
The highlight of their figures for me however, were the Frontier figures. This was a range that Modelers Mart owned and cast in the warehouse. On the weekends you could usually find somebody pulling out the molds and spin-casting the figures to fill orders. I remember having them custom cast many figures for me while I waited. It was great to walk out of there with “hot” lead in your hand!
I was collecting 15mm AWI, 15mm SYW and 15mm ACW at the time. Frontier made a bunch of ranges in both 15mm and 25mm, including: SYW, FIW, AWI, 1812, Mex-American, ACW, Plains Wars, Franco-Prussian, Boxer Rebellion, Early Napoleonics, Ancients, Aztecs, Alamo, Colonials, etc. They figures weren’t the most finely sculpted figures by today’s standards, but they were nice hefty figures full of a lot of charm. I really enjoyed collecting and painting them. One of my wargaming regrets is not having bought more of them! I still check eBay regularly, but I wish I had a bunch of their 25mm Mexican-American War, ACW, and Franco-Prussian War figures right now!
Modelers Mart eventually changed owners and down sized (several times), before sliding into wargaming history. The old molds were sold off and are still owned by someone in FL, but to my knowledge they aren’t casting anything currently. I hope they start casting them again in the future and make them available for sale! If anyone can provide an update on Frontier figures, please feel free to leave a comment!
I found this coupon in my catalog! It was a great way to keep me spending more money!
Any way, I just purchased some 25mm ACW Frontier figures on eBay. I purchased an unopened FR17A, which is a box set containing 25mm CSA figures. I’ll likely use them as a western Union unit. Anyway, here are some pictures of the 25mm Frontier ACW figures. What do you think?
The figures in the original packaging. This was a great ebay find!
Here they are in all their glory!
A close up of the figures. Sorry about the black shaded area. I’m not sure how that got there! How do you think they stand up by today’s standards?
If you have any Frontier news or updates you would like to share, please feel free to leave comments. Take care and Good Gaming! Cory
15 responses to “Back In My Day: Modelers Mart and Frontier Miniatures”
I share your love of Frontier figures. The molds have been sold and resold a number of times and although plans were discussed as to making them available again, nothing ever happened. I managed to pick up lots of 25mm Mexican American War as well as 15mm AWI, MAW, and War of 1812 several years ago – several thousand dollars worth. However, I sold them all except for the 15mm AWI of which I have lots. I knew Atley Turner well and made one trip to Al Younghaus’ hobby shop and he allowed me to go in the back and look around with the lyzards. Wonderful man. Enjoyed reading your article.
Howdy there
Congratulations for this article, me I only collect the Frontier miniature 25 mm figures of their ‘Plains Wars’ range? If you have them for sale notify me.
Thank you.
Cheers
Pascal
Can you or anyone else that has a modelers mart catalog dated between about 1988-1992, Look in the Rulebooks section for Frontier Games and verify whether or not they list a set of rules called Los Alamos? These have eluded me for years, so I’m hoping someone can verify (or negate?) their existance. Thanks so much guys. I checked the boxes for “notify” on future comments, so just reply and I’ll come back and see it. Great blog post BTW. Cheers!
First time I met Al was in the early 1970s when his hobby store was in Belleaire Bluffs . His stock at the time consisted of a couple boxes of Mini Figs behind the counter . It was great all the same and Al was incredibly patient with my excitement. He become one of the main distributors to many out there and I came along for the ride . God Bless you Al Younghaus
In my business trips to El Paso, I visited Atley and picked up boxes and boxses of his figures fresh out of the casting machine (in what only can be described as a hut). I still have several hundred that have yet to be painted.
Very accurately designed figures,
I remember Modlers Mart as well. One of my greatest disappointments was in not buying their Frontier 15mm Franco Prussians. The command figures were so cool. But what I bought mostly from them were the Hinton Hunt 25mm Napoleonic figures. It is truly a shame that kids today only see the electronic side of wargaming. I feel honored and privileged to have participated in the miniatures revolution of the 1970’s through the 1990’s. I have over 10,000 napoleonic Hinton Hunts, Der Kriegspeiliers castings all painted and mounted for wargaming.
I miss these old lines. We all get old.(Sighs)
Reply to Richard Kropp
Hi Richard, I checked my old catalogs from that era and I did not see that set of rules listed. I also checked the 1994 catalog and still had no success finding the rules set.
Sorry Charles
Brings back many memories of the 80 and90s painting thousands of 15mm ACW figures which i still have severl hundred .
I have fond memories of Modelers Mart when they were in Bellair. I actually did game reviews for their newsletter when I was in Highschool. As a highschool kid on a budget I took full advantage of the used board game section and spent many a weekend or evening playing games like Airwar, Airforce/Dauntless and Squad Leader along with any number of micro armor games with the MM crew.
There’s some coming up for sale online auction caring transitions. CT bids. 5 boxes of them.
Would love to find Frontier 25mm or 15mm Boxer rebellion, esp. Russian and Japanese. Believe I can offer some tempting trades or cash.
Can offer Front Rank Painted 30 Years War, variety of other 15mm and 25mm historicals.
I found a 1990 Modelers Mart Catalog when doing cleanup of my book/model collections. I was wondering if this business still existed. Going through the catalog brings me memories. So where can you get similar metal models/figurines?
Frontier Miniatures got me into colonial wargames as well as Franco-Prussian wargaming. I’ve been lucky to hang on to my 25mm brit colonials for zulu wars and 15mm French Guard for FPW. Man I wish someone would make those available again.
Ken Bunger! Are you in Chicago AO? Are you still gaming? What eras?
Dave.benjamin@comcast.net