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Dear
Partners,
Welcome to this month’s batch of new releases which have a very
strong WW2 flavour that I hope will
appeal to quite a few of you.
But before we get down to all of that
here is a brief report on my most recent visit to the U.S. and my
adventures in Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia.
First, I flew out to Dallas and
then onto San Antonio on October 9. Cathay
Pacific, Hong Kong’s very own airline have recently
introduced direct flights from here to Dallas Fort Worth which
is the best and easiest way to get to San Antonio instead
of transiting through LAX.
The flight itself from HK to DFW took
just 14 1/2 hours but with the aid of a good book, a great movie (‘WARFARE’) and
some excellent food and inflight service it was, relatively
speaking, ‘a walk in the park’.
After a brief stopover at DFW I got the
connecting flight to San Antonio and a short hop later arrived in
the ‘Alamo City’.
The main purpose of my Texas trip was to
meet up with K&C’s cofounder, Mrs. Laura Johnson and
see the structural changes we were making to our King &
Country Texas store at 5945 Broadway in the beautiful
Alamo Heights suburb of San Antonio. In addition, I get to
catch up with Ms. Amber our great store manager and
our newest recruit Mike who is assisting Amber.
During my 9 days in San Antonio we also
set up a special evening event called, ‘Cocktails &
Conversation with Andy’ where local friends and collectors
came together to enjoy some excellent food, drinks and chat about
all things toy soldiers, especially K&C but also to discuss
new ideas and latest releases.
Over a few hours more than 50 collectors
attended and, I hope, a good time was had by all.
From Texas I then flew on to Charlotte,
North Carolina to meet up with Mr. Fred D’ Ambrosio,
a very good friend and avid collector of our ‘Parade &
Ceremonial’ figures as well as a few other K&C series,
particularly our ‘Medieval Knights’ range.
As it happens Fred was the man behind
our exclusive and upcoming ‘Summerall
Guard’ soldiers or to be more precise, the special parade
unit of the ‘South Carolina Corps of Cadets’ better known
as ‘The Citadel’.
This unique military college is based in
historic and beautiful Charleston S.C. which Fred had
arranged for us to visit a few days later.
However, before that we also met up with
Mr. Dan Nance, an amazing artist who paints a wide
range of colourful and highly detailed
artworks depicting great battles and personalities that shaped
world history as well as portraits of the warriors and military
leaders that fought in them.
In addition, Dan also designs and
constructs amazing displays and dioramas covering the same
historic subject matter.
All of this and much more we saw when
Fred and myself visited his new gallery and studio also located
in a suburb of Charlotte.
Following a brief 2 day stay in North
Carolina, Fred and myself then drove down to Charleston itself to
visit The Citadel, a college containing over 2,200
full-time Cadets.
For half a day Fred showed me around
this impressive establishment which obviously, has a strong
military character with all the students in uniform (somewhat
similar to West Point) and various artillery pieces, armour (including a Sherman tank) and
even an ‘Apache’ helicopter on display in
the grounds of the college.
We also met up with one of the admin
staff to show them our joint production of The Summerall Guard figures.
One other interesting point… The
current President of The Citadel, General Glen
Walters, a now-retired, four-star USMC General was also Deputy
Commandant of the Marine Corps and an old
acquaintance… We met through a mutual Marine friend in San
Diego almost 36 years before when General Walters was just a
humble Captain!
While in Charleston, Fred and yours
truly also took the opportunity to visit the ‘USS Yorktown’
a decommissioned ‘Essex’ class aircraft
carrier now moored alongside the ‘USS Laffey’ another
WW2 veteran destroyer with an incredibly heroic wartime history
fighting off dozens of kamikaze attacks in the Pacific.
Both ships are moored alongside each
other at Patriots Point just outside
Charleston. A fantastic destination for any WW2 history buff
visiting this beautiful and historic city.
After an all-too-brief couple of days in
Charleston we drove on, once more, to Atlanta GA
and the beautiful home of our next host, Mr. Craig Warner.
Craig and myself met many years ago at
the old ‘Chicago Toy Soldier Show’ in the Hyatt Hotel
in Schaumburg near Chicago. Over the years we have stayed
in touch and last year, 2024, Craig invited me to visit Atlanta
and view his own, very special WW2 diorama. This features a
massive 8’ x 6’ European town badly
bombed and battered and being fought over by a trio of
adversarial armies… American, German and British!
On this return visit for me it was great
fun to inspect once more this incredibly detailed town model from
every angle and position. For Fred it was his first visit
and he too was impressed by the enormity of this townscape and
the hundreds of scale model figures (the majority being
K&C) and the variety of the opposing armour
and artillery fighting to capture the ruins of this 1:30 scale
town.
Over the next few days all three of us discussed history,
politics and toy soldiers interspersed with some fine wine and
delicious food thanks to Craig’s beautiful and talented wife Polly.
On my last full day in Atlanta, Craig and myself drove to
famous ‘Fort Benning’, (alas Fred had to
return to North Carolina to visit an old friend). This
U.S. Army base was where the legendary John Wayne shot
most of his Vietnam-inspired ‘Green Berets’ movie
back in 1967.
‘Fort Benning’ is still a fully-operational
U.S. Army establishment however it’s also the home of the National
Infantry Museum which was our next destination.
Just a few hours drive from Atlanta
this relatively new museum (opened in 2012) is a state-of-the-art
museum using the very latest and most impressive display
techniques to tell and illustrate the many stories and
experiences of United States Infantrymen from the Revolutionary
War in 1776 all the way up to the more modern conflicts
in both Afghanistan and Iraq in recent
times.
All of that and the many wars and battles fought in between are
on show in this huge and spacious environment.
A very special mention must go to the life-size sculpted figures
which populate the many tableaux that illustrate each
conflict. The uniform details and weaponry worn and carried
by each infantryman on show is really excellent.
As are the vehicles and helicopters also on display.
If you ever come to Atlanta you simply must go to the National
Infantry Museum at Fort Benning… It is
simply one of the finest military museums in the world day, don’t
miss it!
A day later I prepared to fly out of the States and back to Hong
Kong after one of my most enjoyable visits ever.
As usual, what makes business visits such as this most recent one
so rewarding are the folks you encounter.
Friends and colleagues such as Laura, Fred and Craig are
both generous in their hospitality and kindness but also generous
with their own knowledge, creativity and time.
Early morning meetings, mid day
discussions and late night suggestions and ideas with collectors
and colleagues such as these guys are a very big part of what
makes King & Country so different from many of our
competitors.
I truly value the input and comments from far and wide which
influence what K&C products we produce and which paths we
take going forward.
This last trip was truly one of the very best and certainly one
of the most productive for myself and King & Country… and
importantly a whole lot of fun… And that’s what collecting
anything, including toy soldiers and / or military miniatures is
all about at the end of the day.
Finally, a word of gratitude to Laura, Barbara and
Polly… the ladies who provided their beautiful and very
comfortable homes for me to stay in and delicious meals to enjoy
in between all of these visits and many hours of toy soldier
talk.
A very big THANK YOU!
And now boys and girls, let’s see what K&C has to offer this
month…
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