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Archive Miniatures:
By Barbara and Neville Stocken. Archive miniatures has a rather colorful
history of success and failure. Regardless, the sculpting of the miniatures was always noted for its artistic quality. Unfortunately, the molds deteriorated over time and the quality of the figures produced by
Archive declined as the 1970's faded into the 1980's. Subsequently, the earlier castings tend to have a much better look to them, with more detail and less casting flaws, such as bubbles, excessive flash, cracks,
and a general lack of fine detail. Ultimately, the company went bankrupt when some of its unlicensed miniatures fell pray to lawsuits, like the unlicensed Star Wars minis that George Lucas liked, but his licensed
distributors did not. You have to admit that even if you change the name and add antlers, Darth Vader is still rather distinguishable to corporate attorneys. Even changing the company name to R'Kiiv only delayed the
inevitable.
The product numbers associated with these miniatures varied over the years. Many of the individual minis were also packaged together in sets of 2 to 4 miniatures, such as Morning and Evening Star
or Harrek, Gunda, Beat Pot and Jar Eel in another.
The molds were eventually sold to Chessex, who then sold them to Emperor's Choice, who in turn have sold them to Dark Age miniatures in Battle Creek, MI. They are currently recasting a limited number of minis for just about the entire Archive Runequest line.
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