But today my interests have no bounds. If you share some of these interests, Jonathan Crawford's World Toy Soldier Directory and Compendium will likely be an enjoyable reference and worthwhile purchase for you. Direct advertising by a plethora of manufacturers and dealers, some of it magnificently presented in close-up, color photos of current production painted toy soldiers, dominate. The first thing I always do when I check into a hotel room is open up the phone book and look for any toy soldier dealers close by. This is a chronically futile exercise, but the yellow pages in this book are a dream come true.
Every entry is for toy soldiers.
And despite the fact that I've put in a lot of effort searching such establishments out over the years, there were still a few within striking distance of my home that I had never come upon. This space is shared by a dozen short features providing an introduction to various aspects of toy soldier collecting. Besides the ads from many dealers we all know so well from PFPC, these two features are the only pages of obvious interest to pure plastic collectors. They are, at best, brief overviews of the general history of production in the two countries. So if you collect or are interested in more than plastic, or don't know that much about some of the other types of toy soldiers and want to find out, the Compendium is a good bet.