My guess is the vast majority of those were/are cheap, generic, Army Men types, usually clones of clones of some 1960's Airfix sculpts. You could buy those in large bags in toy stores in the 1980's and these days you can get literal buckets with hundreds of them online. Much cheaper than the hobby boxes.

I remember as a child I managed to convince my parents to buy a box or two of real Airfix figures in some hobby store, but the bulk of my old collection are generic no-name clones.