Blue Coats, Red Coats, or Green Coats

[jodawill]

On 7/11/2023 at 11:11 PM, Elephant Knight said:

I am solidly in the Red Coat camp, though I cannot deny the sharpness of the original figs. My second oldest Lego set was Sea Mates, the version with the red coats, and never had any blue coats until that Bricktober fig was released in 2010.

So yeah, solidly a redcoat here.

Sea Mates was my first pirates set - possibly only the second set I received that included minifigures. Those were the only soldiers I had as a kid, so I have a real soft spot for that set. I recently bought a very nice copy with the box from Mercari at a good price, but the seller apparently had second thoughts because she cancelled my order a week after marking it as shipped.

It would be tough to say that I prefer one over the other. I like both the red and blue versions, although I didn't know the blue ones existed until I was an adult. I have a lot more of the blue ones now. Are they actually more common? It seems like I find 10 for every red one I see. I probably have 20 of the blue ones. I've never ordered them from Bricklink. I've just randomly come across them over the years through various sets I've picked up and so forth. I think I only have three of the red ones, and that includes the two from Sea Mates.

I always wanted the Armada ones as a kid. As an adult, I still want them (I only have the red one from the small set, which I picked up about 10 years ago). But I'm not quite as excited about them now because they don't really seem like something I can army build. They all look like some kind of noblemen, not soldiers. So I do like them quite a bit, and I would be really excited to get the rest, but I also get a lot of enjoyment from building armies, and I feel like the lack of foot soldiers for that faction limits the building opportunities a bit.

[CvS]

19 hours ago, Doddsino said:

Give me the Dutch! 

Hear Hear! 

[Alexandrina]

16 hours ago, jodawill said:

I have a lot more of the blue ones now. Are they actually more common? It seems like I find 10 for every red one I see. I probably have 20 of the blue ones. I've never ordered them from Bricklink. I've just randomly come across them over the years through various sets I've picked up and so forth. I think I only have three of the red ones, and that includes the two from Sea Mates.

I've never actually found a complete Pirate set in a job lot (closest I came was 75% of the Islander Catamaran) so take this with a pinch of salt, but I've found the same. I've got my Eldorado populated with a few extra classic bluecoats I've picked up in random lots, but to this day I've never actually seen an original redcoat in the flesh.

[TheCosmicTravelers]

I just posted about this in the 10320 thread but I guess it is relevant here also:

After standardization, commissioned officers in the Royal Navy wore blue tunics and coats and white pants (sailors were much less standardized but it seems non-commissioned officers generally wore blue tunics and blue pants at least during later times).  The Royal Marines, however, wore scarlet tunics like the British Army and the various British Colonial Auxiliary Forcers.  As Royal Marines were stationed aboard ships and at naval bases, it was thus fairly common for redcoat and bluecoat forces to serve together (you can even see this with the bluecoat captain/governor minifig found in the 2009 Imperial sets 6242 and 10210).  Granted, you probably wouldn’t have much bluecoat infantry in the British forces, and the presence of the fleur-de-lis on the bluecoat sets’ flag does suggest France more.  As the shako headgear was not common until the 19^th century (at least ¾ of a century after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy), I replace them with tricornes on my sea-going bluecoats (I use the soldier torsos for midshipmen/petty officers and the various officer torsos for commissioned officers) and redcoats (who I use as Royal Marines).

[zinnn]

I just realised there was a thread like this one, and with a poll as well! Maybe mods can merge both? @Mister Phes / @Marooned Marin ?

 

Edited July 16, 2023 by zinnn

[Marooned Marin]

15 hours ago, zinnn said:

I just realised there was a thread like this one, and with a poll as well! Maybe mods can merge both?

Thank you @zinnn for pointing this up, however that is beyond my power but luckily we have EvanCelt in our team.

@evancelt can this be done?

[evancelt]

It is done!