remember -- you can't take it with you. >> it's one of the largest armies of its kind. >> i think that he was obsessed. >> soldiers of fortune -- and a fortune in soldiers. >> do you have any idea what it's worth? >> yes, we know what it's worth. >> can i know what it's worth? >> the man who raised this army was on a mission... >> he was a true historian. he wanted to bring these battles to life. >> but is it a bridge too far for his heirs? >> he left you with a huge responsibility, didn't he? >> it's just too difficult. >> it's kind of interesting that toy soldiers would get their own trust. >> i don't have my own trust, but they got theirs. [ theme music plays ]

♪ >> i'm jamie colby, and today i'm in new york on the south fork of long island on my way to the beach community of southampton. a viewer wrote to me about her father, whose childhood hobby became his lifelong obsession. he wanted to share his strange collection with the world after he died. his heirs want to honor his wishes, but is the world even interested? ♪ >> my name is linda munn. in 2011, my father, my father, orson, passed away, leaving the family one of the largest collections of its kind, along with the monumental challenge of carrying on his legacy. >> linda has invited me to her parents' country home. hi, linda. i'm jamie. >> jamie, it is such a pleasure to meet you. >> so great of you to invite me here. you wrote me. you said you had something really strange. >> i have something very special to show you.

>> all right. i'm ready. shall we go in? >> come on in. >> yeah. in here? >> yeah, just walk straight ahead. >> what? linda takes me into her dad's war room... >> it's amazing. >> ...where orson spent countless hours over the years on his unique hobby. the room is filled from floor to ceiling with nothing but toy soldiers. thousands strong, the tiny troops stand frozen in time, their miniature faces stoic with expressions of war. this is a lifetime of work, linda. amazing. there's the charge of the light brigade... the battle of cambrai... napoleon's defeat at waterloo... clashes from the boer war all the way up through world war ii. stare at them long enough, and you can imagine them coming to life. [ gunfire, men yelling ]

toy soldiers become a passion for orson munn when he moves from manhattan to long island as a little boy, says his widow, pat. >> he came out here because he has ill health. the doctors felt that he should be in the country. >> orson's chronic ear ailment often keeps him confined in his room. >> that's when he started playing with soldiers on a tray in his bed. >> were they substitutes for friends? >> i think that they were. >> orson iii says his dad kept building his armies through prep school, princeton, and law school. then orson decides, rather than collecting troops, he'll become one. >> he was in the navy during the second world war, and he actually lied to get in because he was stone deaf in one ear. but he felt it was his obligation. >> after the war, orson returns home, marries pat, starts a family, and launches his career.

>> father said, whatever you do, don't go on wall street, but he did anyway, and he was very, very successful. >> the family lives in new york city but spends weekends here in southampton. it's around this time that orson's toy-soldier recruitment begins to ramp up. >> he bought and traded them constantly. >> we had correspondence -- i say "we" -- it's not we -- he -- from all over the world. >> he would go to europe. he'd stop by a soldier store in london that was his favorite, and he would buy them. >> we stayed in a wonderful little hotel in vienna, and naturally, the back door of the hotel was a soldier shop. >> i think he picked it on purpose. >> [ laughs ] on purpose. >> just as he did when he was a boy, orson plays with his soldiers, painstakingly re-creating the world's most famous battles. >> i think that he could have easily have been a general. he knew more about military history than anyone i ever met.

>> orson hand-paints many of the miniature figures himself, spending hours on end adding even more historical detail to his military dioramas. >> he would come home, read his stack of analyst papers, and then go into his painting room. >> every single braid on the uniform, every button is clearly detailed for you. >> right down to the color of the eyeballs of napoleon. >> it's painstaking work. it's so accurate you can see the pain on the faces of some of the soldiers on their way to the ground. it's just incredible to me. >> he was a true historian -- he wanted to bring these battles to life. >> with sand on some shelves and artificial snow on others, no detail is too small for his handcrafted battle scenes. >> would you say it was a hobby? or was he obsessed? >> i think that he was...

obsessed. >> he even makes home videos of his collection. >> we have the battle of bastogne. the snow is talcum powder and they'd been fighting it out. the 101st airborne was not going to surrender. >> over the years, the battle scenes grow to include the charging scottish highlanders, the british fighting the zulus, and much more. >> the allies fighting the germans outside of berlin, the french foreign legion fighting the english in the desert. i mean, there are soldiers that are probably 80 years old. >> orson's is eventually one of -- if not the -- largest toy soldier collection in the country, with over 10,000 figurines. and as orson enters his golden years, he begins to worry about the fate of his beloved troops once he's gone. he has the will, but can his

heirs find the way? >> he left you with a huge responsibility, didn't he? >> it's just too difficult. >> coming up...rolling the dice with their strange and valuable inheritance. >> i'm busting your morale by killing all your flag holders. >> and i'm a guest in your home. >> you're the enemy. >> i do need to blow something up on your side. that's next. >> but first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question. in 1645, britain adopted its famous redcoat military uniform. what led to the color choice? is it that red uniforms did not show bloodstains? red dye was cheap? or that red made regiments appear larger? the answer when we return. you totaled your brand new car. nobody's hurt, but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three quarters of a car?

now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement, we'll replace the full value of your car. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance.

>> so... it's b -- the red dye was cheap. there is no basis for the popular myth that red was favored to hide bloodstains. ♪ >> orson munn spent over 80 years collecting more than 10,000 toy soldiers, miniature figures he uses to meticulously re-create some of history's famous battles. >> the next group of figures that i have -- i painted them all myself. >> and as orson reaches his 80s,

the toy-soldier general hatches a plan to create a permanent base for his troops. >> what he would have liked more than anything is a museum in southampton. he gave 19 years of his life as a village trustee here. >> and his collection is well known in toy-soldier circles. but nobody in town seems interested in erecting a museum to display all this. but in the fall of 2010, a curator from several states away does come knocking. a museum did approach your father, but it wasn't in southampton. >> correct. >> orson receives a visit from the frazier history museum in louisville, kentucky, which offers to take the entire collection and put it on display. orson isn't ready to give up his men, but he does agree to a lesser donation -- 2,600 so-called flats -- two-dimensional soldiers he has in formation at his manhattan apartment.

so, why didn't dad turn over the collection to a museum that showed such enthusiasm? >> because we still had hope that we were gonna be able to get a building here in southampton. >> so, in august 2011, when orson passes away at the age of 86, his family inherits not only his toy soldiers, but the tall order of creating a museum to house them. did he specify in his will what he hoped the family would do with the soldiers that meant so much to him? >> what we did is we actually put them in a trust so they could be given away tax free to a museum. >> it's kind of interesting that toy soldiers would get their own trust. >> [ laughs ] yeah. exactly. right. i don't have my own trust, but they got theirs. >> these figures were, in their time, 50 cents for a cavalryman. these figures now sell at $250 and infantry at $100.

>> with that kind of appreciation, the 10,000 soldiers orson left behind may be worth a small fortune. >> after all, many are not so much toys as tiny sculptures, delicately handcrafted by talented artists. in 1893, an englishman named william britain revolutionized the production of toy soldiers through the method of hollow casting. after the military men are shaped, they are sent to sculptors and painters. >> build up on the metal base buttons, lapels, epaulets, which were then painted to the exact historical regiment. so, extreme detail. >> tara finley is an antique-toy specialist. the munns call her in to tell them what their strange inheritance is worth. >> i walked into the room on a cold december day, and here

before me was an army of thousands, displayed in very realistic dioramas. it was truly amazing. >> and a daunting task to photograph and appraise every last figure. >> there were 37 dioramas and 59 groupings of lead soldiers. it took a good five days. >> in addition to the soldiers orson painted himself, tara identifies thousands of highly sought-after classics, such as these by premier toy-soldier artist roger berdou, pegged at $500 apiece. so all those little soldiers add up to some big-time value. do you have any idea what it's worth? >> yes, we know what it's worth. >> can i know what it's worth? >> if it were auctioned off in

pieces, it's probably worth about $300,000 or $400,000. >> $400,000. but only if they break up the collection and sell it off to hundreds of younger orsons just starting off the hobby, hunting down their own missing pieces, constructing their own dioramas, fighting their own wars. that's the catch. why didn't he sell it during his lifetime? >> i think that if something gives you that much joy, the last thing that ever crossed his mind would be to sell it. >> but given the high appraisal, surely it crosses his heirs' minds, right? are you absolutely opposed to separating this collection and selling it? that's next. >> here's another quiz question for you. napoleon's infamous defeat during his 1812 invasion of russia was due in part to what stroke of bad luck?

the answer when we return.

[ theme music plays ] >> so... it's c -- lice. a raging epidemic of typhus -- spread by lice -- infected the french army. more than 100,000 of napoleon's troops die from the disease. ♪ >> the bottom shelf here, every figure is different, and it was very difficult to get this set. >> orson munn spent his entire life building a toy army of more than 10,000 soldiers. >> i've shown a zulu warrior wearing a red coat.

>> his collection may be worth $400,000, but that never stops him from toying around with what would become their strange inheritance, say his kids, linda and orson iii. >> we used to take the soldiers out and set them up like a real war game. >> a thousand lead soldiers would be lined up on one side against a thousand lead soldiers on the other side. >> i was the only one that ever beat him in a battle. i surprised him with bringing up a cannon to the top of a church and blowing down the main street where he was approaching. >> you're scaring me now. >> [ laughs ] okay, these guys are going to shoot. both barrels. >> today, linda's challenged me to combat on the miniature war gaming battlefield. who's this guy? >> that's your general. and you got another general here. >> we use dice to determine how many steps the soldiers may take... >> [ laughs ] >> i'm supposed to measure. ...and rulers to measure

strides. got it. >> i'm busting your morale by killing all your flag holders. >> and i'm a guest in your home. >> [ laughs ] you're the enemy, not a guest. >> we were getting along so swimmingly. i do need to blow something up on your side. no guts, no glory. >> ready, aim, fire! boom! >> oh, my flags. >> sorry. >> let's get double something. all right! then we're gonna take the other three and shoot... >> in the end, though, i'm no match for the daughter of a mini commander in chief. i can't watch. >> [ laughs ] >> linda's father, orson, dreamed of a museum here in southampton, long island, for his troops. it's now up to his heirs to make it real. did he leave funds behind for you to accomplish that? or has that been left to your family's responsibility? >> it's actually been left to

the family to figure out how to do that. >> linda is dismayed to learn how much it will take to open and maintain a permanent display locally -- $10 million. did you try to raise any money? >> oh, yeah, we did. >> how much did you raise, do you think? >> we raised about $5,000 or $6,000. >> this is a pretty moneyed town. if you can't raise the interest and the money in southampton, where can you? >> i think it's not gonna happen, which is a shame. >> so what about donating the collection to an existing museum here in town? the family tries that, too, but none is interested in displaying 10,000 antique toys. have you gotten a no at every turn? >> pretty much. >> is that upsetting? >> it was and is very upsetting. >> so, it seems like southampton has spoken. >> it does seem that way, doesn't it? >> are you at a crossroads right now that maybe nobody is as interested in the collection as your family is?

will orson's heirs complete their mission? that's next. what's your strange inheritance story? we'd love to hear it. send me an e-mail, or go to our we'd love to hear it. send me an e-mail, or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com. when you think what does it look like? is it becoming a better professor by being a more adventurous student? is it one day giving your daughter the opportunity she deserves? is it finally witnessing all the artistic wonders of the natural world? whatever your definition of success is, helping you pursue it, is ours.

[ theme music plays ] >> now back to "strange inheritance." >> the heirs of orson munn can't seem to fulfill his dying wish, a permanent local home for his massive toy-soldier collection. >> but some of orson's troops do receive their marching orders. remember those 2,600 flats orson donated to that museum in louisville, kentucky? the frazier uses these men to carefully re-create the battle of borodino -- the bloodiest clash during napoleon's failed invasion of russia in 1812. >> they assembled a team of like-minded individuals to himself, and they created this beautiful diorama. >> the team spends months making sure every soldier is in place,

and in november 2012, the display debuts to the public. >> we went out for the opening, and we couldn't believe it. >> you have the russian soldiers on horseback, you have wounded french that are trying to retreat off the battlefield. i mean, the wolves are attacking wounded soldiers. even showing that kind of level of detail. >> the family is impressed. in fact, they return to southampton even more resolved to find a nearby museum to house their father's collection. >> until i hear from a museum in this southampton village, we're probably not gonna make any moves quickly to disseminate the collection outside of southampton. >> i get it, but i have to say, when i think of the munns' strange inheritance story, from the sickly child enthralled with his first toy soldiers to the young man hooked on a collecting to the wealthy money manager's escape into his

war room, would it really be so tragic to split all this up piece by piece? i'd let history go ahead and repeat itself. a present once again inspires a young boy. another middle-aged guy indulges his hobby. and a lifelong collector finally gets the piece that completes his world war i diorama. there's a collector out there who has the entire setup except that one toy soldier they're missing. why not split it up and help a ton of other toy-soldier collectors get as much pleasure as your dad did? >> i believe that it would be in the best hands kept as a collection. you can read about a battle, but when you actually see it played out, you can see in a much more clear way what happened at that battle. when you see it, you have that

awed feeling, and it's the mass of them that is awesome. >> what happens if it doesn't work out at all? what happens if no museum is interested? would your dad be looking down on you and your sister and say, "i'm disappointed"? >> i don't think so. i think that he would be very pleased. we certainly have tried. and had it been so easy, i'm sure he could have done it. >> so, for now, the soldiers remain frozen in time, and the battle for orson munn's legacy at a stalemate. we mentioned orson painted most soldiers himself, but actually got some help from his granddaughter caroline. every tuesday afternoon during the school year, they would paint until bedtime. caroline remembers being as sloppy as a little girl can be with a brush, yet somehow, the next morning, every soldier looked impeccable. go figure. i'm jamie colby for

"strange inheritance." thanks so much for watching, and remember, you can't take it with you. [ airplane engine buzzing ] ♪ >>president kennedy has been assassinated. it's official now. the president is dead. >> even the most hated man in america... [gunshot ] >> [groans] >>lee oswald has been shot! >> ...gets his name on a headstone. >> the stone clearly shows oswald's date of birth and death. >> but how did it become their strange inheritance? >> i thought, "what on earth was a tombstone doing under my mother's house?" >> only after it's stolen, recovered, hidden, found, fought over, and more. >> we're going to take it back to texas, back home to the good ol' boys where it can have a lone star beer and make a lot of noise. >> you really wanted it back, dave. why? >> maybe they messed with the wrong tombstone owner. [ door creaks ]