Mithril Fellowship 'Death of Boromir' Vignette miniatures

Prince August Medieval Knight (PA420) Mold - Painted example

Lars Edman, owner, recalls the early days of Prince August in Kilnamartyra Village, near Macroom town, County Cork, Ireland.

In early January 1976 my newly wed wife and I came to Ireland from Sweden. We had bought a factory building in the small village of Kilnamartyra in late 1975 and now was to time to get started. After a few days of recruiting a couple of local people we started the factory 8th January. We had brought 2 mould making machines from Sweden and the first thing we did, was installing them. I did not take long and after a week the production started of moulds. Our first employees were Joe McCarthy and Tony Nott. I particularly remember Tony as he came into the factory, said nothing but hallo, grabbed a hammer and started to work. We had no interview and formal agreement. He just floated in and became an employee. Both of them has left us but the next 2 employees are still with us namely Micheal Murphy and Dan Golden.
In the first year we sent back all our production to Sweden for packing and sale. We had a good market in Germany and we produced as much as we could. In 1977 we started packing all the products and employment increased to 15 people.
The facilities at the factory was very basic at the start. We had no heating but we were kept warm by mould making machines. At the breaks everybody was gathering in the only office in the building. It gave us a good chance to get to know the local people and practice the local accent.
The telephone system was the thing which amazed us most. There was a handle on the phone which had to be turned fast to get the attention of an operator. It sometime took a while to get a reply from the local operator but then she had to transfer the call to an operator in Macroom and that could take an eternity. It drove us absolutely crazy. After growing up in a country where we took automatic telephones for granted it was very frustrating to get used to the old system. It took until 1984 before our phones went automatic.
It is quite a contrast to think back on how things used to be. Today we are taking mobile phones and internet for granted. It is amazing how things have changed!

Michael O'Brien is our webmaster and he is the person who handles our Ebay listings. He is a friendly and approachable guy so if you have any questions please ask him.

If you are sending us anything in the post please address it as follows:

Att: Michael O'Brien, Prince August Toy Factory, Kilnamartyra Village, Macroom, Co. Cork, Ireland. (We do not have a zip or postcode)

Mithril Miniatures was founded in 1987 and has been dedicated since then to the creation of miniature figures, inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth as portrayed in his famous works "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". It has been our intention to faithfully recreate the characters from these works and imbue the miniatures as much as possible with the atmosphere and feel of Middle-earth.

To this end much painstaking research has gone into this range, both in costume and character appearance, so as to make and retain an authentic and consistent feel to the figures and above all to remain true to Tolkien's original vision of his strange and magical world. Our designer, Chris Tubb, has been with us from the beginning and has crafted over 500 figures depicting all kinds or races and creatures from Middle-Earth.

FACTORY OPENING TIMES AND CONTACT DETAILS:

We are open to visitors 9 to 5 p.m Monday to Friday, all year long, except Irish bank holidays and a few weeks at Christmas. We open on Saturdays during May, June, July and August, 10 to 4p.m. We can be contacted by phone, +353 26 40344 (Michael, our webmasters, direct line) or by fax: +353 26 40004. Our main phone number is +353 26 40222.

Email me on info@princeaugust.ie