bondoman
What LHS? Wait, don't tell me! Franciscan? If it's the one with the John Steel painting, it's worth a lot of money, maybe $ 350.00.
They aren't the same kit, although it seems one is much more accurate than the other. If you want to have an evening of entertainment, get a couple of good cigars, a bottle of wine and search the topic on FSM.
I'm really curious about the basis of Bondoman's assertion that the new version from Revell Germany is different from the old 1961 kit.
I just took another look at the photo of the finished model on the company website ( http://www.revell.de/en/products/model_kits/model_kits/products/?id=210&KGKANR=0&KGKOGP=10&KGSCHL=43&L=1&page=2&sort=0&nc=1&searchactive=&q=&SWO=&ARMAS4=&PHPSESSID=1965e1df10b7d98240e8afc86dbe7b72&KZSLPG=&offset=13&cmd=show&ARARTN=05458&sp=1 ); it sure looks like the one my mother bought me in 1961. (I built it a couple of times after that - including one adventure, based on an article I found in a British magazine, that actually sailed. Well, sort of. Briefly.) The model in the picture has the Bounty's hull (complete with the mis-shapen head knee), the curious deck arrangement that closes up the gaps in the rails of the waist and at the bow, the raised poop deck, the bark rig, the two stands (rather than Revell's usual T-shaped one), and the boats hanging on davits at the stern. The only differences I can see are the bizarre color scheme and, of course, the replacement of the original plastic-covered thread shrouds and ratlines with injection-molded ones. And the "list of features" (two cannons, billowing sails, "lifeboats and davits," etc.) matches my recollection.
The website has a button to click to call up a copy of the instruction sheet, but I couldn't get it to work. That would surely resolve the issue; I'll try again this evening. But it sure looks like the same old deceptive monstrosity to me.
I do remember, quite clearly, the John Steel painting on the original box. (It probably was the best feature of the kit.) Dr. Graham says the kit was reissued (by Revell U.S.) in 1966; I don't know what the box art for that one looked like. In his appendix he gives both the 1961 and 1966 versions price ranges of $30-$40. Caveat: my copy of the book is the second edition, from 2004. There's a third edition on the market now; presumably the prices in it have been revised. And Dr. Graham's prices in general seem to be quite a bit lower than some that I've seen on the web.
I'm more than willing - even anxious - to be corrected. If there is indeed another Revell "Beagle" floating around out there, nobody will be happier than I will. But it sure looks to me like the company is just rerunning a forty-year-old marketing scam.
I sometimes wonder whether the people in charge of model companies (the people who make the decisions as to what kits are going to be reissued) have any real knowledge of the prototypes - or of model building. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and believe that the current crop of Revell executive really don't know just how awful a piece of consumer deception that kit is.
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.