In 1956 W. Britains Ltd. introduced Set No. 2110 United States Military Band in Full Dress Uniform. It was a large 25 piece depiction of “Pershing’s Own”, formed on 25 January 1922 by order of General of the Army John J. Pershing.
The uniform portrayed is the short-term dress yellow tunic, introduced in the early 1950’s for only a few years, earning the divisive title “The Lion Tamers”. Note that Britains chose not to give the Drum-Major a black bearskin busby.The set remained in Britains catalog from 1956 to 1959, suffered an unusual hiatus in 1960, with a final encore performance from 1961 to 1963 as Set No. 9478. It was the last large hollowcastt lead alloy band produced and cataloged by Britains.
The example I was recently very fortunately able to acquire was of one of the last produced of Set No. 9478 (circa 1963) U.S. Military Band., effectively mint, still tied to the original tie-card and box. It’s previous owner had a toy soldier shop in Central California, and had retained selected sets when he sold his store. The lower right hand corner of the box had subsequently been badly damaged (fortunately figures and tie-card remaining unscathed) and as a result consigned to a still active toy soldier shop for a ridiculously low asking price of $119.00 USD.!
Images of three other identical sets, same combination of instruments, but untied and on display.
Still retaining enough skills to repair and retore the damaged box the author was able to bring it back to close to its original glory. But will allow the reader to be the judge of the veracity of that statement based on the following images. Note that the extremely fragile drum decals had been replaced in the original set by the correct paper labels. Also note small hole punched in box lid (how and why unknown) which has subsequently been filled with wood filler, and touched with same color red paint.
The following initial images are close-ups of the repair and restoration job followed by a range of photographs of the condition and contents of the rest of the set. Consider my self extremely fortunate.
1 comment:
Great fine Jim, I'm jealous. I have this band in the Britains Eyes Right standing, but their are only 13 pieces and of course plastic. Rather odd that Britains didn't use the bearskin hat on the bandmaster figure like the actual Pershing's Own uniformed bandmaster worn.
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