All The King’s Men

Malcolm Forbes was so wealthy, he conscripted his own army in miniature. The publisher and editor, who died in 1990, had gone to a London auction in the late 1960s to buy furniture for his palace in Tangier and picked up several toy soldiers on impulse. Before you could bark, “ten-HUT!” the collection of tiny soldiers on horseback, infantry riflemen, Zulu warriors, English Beefeaters, Confederate troops and doughboys grew to more than 60,000. But the troops Forbes assembled over the years are getting their walking papers. They will be marched to the auction block at Christie’s Thursday. Just in time for Christmas.