Luke Honey | Decorative Antiques, Chess, Backgammon & Games

A great deal of the fun in selling antiques is in the hunt, the chase. For you never know what's going to turn up next. I recently acquired these charming- and stylish- fox hunting figures, which I would date to just before The First World War, around 1910. They come from an unusual game, The Hunt by Cotswold Toys, originally sold at Hamleys, the famous toy shop in Regent's Street.

I'm asssuming these were originally tokens, and the child would push them along a board or cloth (now lost) to the finish. But they're unusually large for a board game, the largest figures coming in at around 13.5cm high.

And each figure has a name typed out on the bottom. The rather 'fast' looking girl on the left is "Diana Goodsort on Margot', the dashing chap in Hunting Pink is 'Captain Thruster RN on Turpin'. There's also hounds and a fox. I think they would look fantastic arranged across a chimneypiece, or on a table. £300.