Frontline US Marine Band PDB1

The Frontline US Marine Band is a beautiful set which I have enjoyed for years.  I can't quite recall where I purchased it at, but King's X in San Antonio seems to be the likely culprit.  Frontline makes great figures and is part of the new school of Toy Soldier makers.  It was founded in 1983 in Hong Kong.  I hope some day I can visit Hong Kong (on business) and make a stop into their shop.

This set is historically horribly innacurate, but is a nice addition to the band collection anyways.  I was corrected on the inaccuracy of this set by Col. John R. Bourgeois himself as he remarked, that while the Marines certainly do have a drum and bugle corps, they where standard Marine blue uniforms.  The Red tunics are reserved for "The President's Own United States Marine Band" and they would never be seen on parade in this instrumentation.

Without a doubt he is right, but I don't really care.  I still enjoy this set greatly.  The pictures below depict the set as it was displayed at my previous house and where I currently have it displayed on top of a US Military field drum (quite appropriate I think).

Britains Band of the royal Air Force No. 41151

This is one of my newer acquisitions.  I purchased this off of eBay a few years back as it was one of those "too good of a deal not to pass up" situations.  This 21 piece band is one of the Britains limited edition sets.  The set was limited to 1000 sets and produced in 2005. 

This is also one of the first sets I have that were produced after Britains was purchased by Ertl.  Apparantly, Britains Ltd was acquired by Ertl in 2000.  I was not really paying much attention to what was happening in the land of military miniatures at that point, so it came to me as a suprise that there were other logos on the box as well as the Britains logo.  As an aside, I think for the most part-  Ertl has done a great job with the brand.  My only complaint would be the move to use plastic "clamshell" packaging on single soldiers and small sets... I know this is a retail friendly, cost-savings move- but it still takes away some of the allure of the earlier Britains soldiers.  Part of the attraction to the older sets is the great boxes they have come in... I would hate to see that all change...  On limited edition sets, they are still faithfully in a nice boxed package- so perhaps it is only for the lower budget items.

Anyways, i digress.  This set is beautiful and has sat in my work office for a few years in a prime location.  Enjoy!

Ducal Band of the Scots Guards in Grey Overcoats

This is a great looking set that has a good deal of sentimental value to me.  This was purchased on a trip I made to England in 2000.  The trip was actually a musical trip as I was traveling over with my college band.  While in England, we attended "Beating Retreat", a military tattoo and also spent time at Wellington Barracks where we got to watch the changing of the guard from the inside of the fence (due to great connections with the ensemble director as well as the head of military music for the British Army.  The day happened to be quite rainy and the band along with all of the soldiers participating in the changing of the guard were wearing the long gray overcoats which I had previously never seen.  So after the ceremonies, I sauntered into "The Guards" toy soldier shop (one of my favorites) and picked up this set along with a few others.  I have become especially enamored with Ducal through the years as they always have unique settings for bands and tend to have a great deal of band groups in their line.  I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I do.