SMER Model Ship Kits (with a focus on their Black Falcon)

As far as I know this old Merit (SMER) plastic kit is the only one of a brigantine. Unless Heller have done something similar in the past.

Thanks, Will, though at times brave might not be the word; fool, perhaps?

I take an approach to plastic kits that I take with a pile of bass and boxwood; it is material. I like plastic in that it allows me to get a model together fairly quickly, though at times little of the original kit remains. Sure, I replace masts and yards with wood quite often, and every bit of detail is often times removed. But the result is generally achieved faster than working with wood. 

The old Black Falcon is one of those kits that is so easy to find cheaply and is really wanting to be... improved.

That's right, the SMER issue is an ex- 'Merit' kit, which is an almost direct copy of the Aurora model. The main difference is the (very heavy handed) planking detail on the Aurora version was not copied on to the Merit kit. The transom detail is also rather more crude than the Aurora offering, but that's not to say the Aurora kit is anything other than a piece of junk as a scale model!

You're a brave man!

Will

This is where it gets confusing. I've read elsewhere that the Black Falcon was indeed originally somebody else's, not Aurora. The SMER version is similar but lacks detail compared to an Aurora kit I saw almost twenty years ago. 

I would like to give a bit more information about the origins of the 'Black Falcon' pirate ship kit. I did see some SMER versions of this kit in a model shop about 10 years ago. Not aware however that Aurora ever used the moulds in the past. Way back in the 1950's when I was at school here in England this was my first ever plastic kit build. The kit actually emanated from a company named J&R Randall Ltd under the 'Merit' brand name. They made a number of kits..mainly aircraft, and also a nice little series of 1/24th scale kits of racing cars of the 1950's era. In fact the last 2 car kits they made were an Alfetta and Talbot Lago and these moulds eventually went to SMER. All the other car kit moulds were sold to an Italian company and were never heard of since. Merit also issued a kit of the Cutty Sark that I have seen turn up on trade stands at model shows at a prohibitive price. This kit is a bit basic to say the least....The Airfix one is much better being very well detailed. One of the gems Merit did make was Donald Campbell's Bluebird World water Speed Record Boat. Now an extremely rare kit. I don't think that anyone else has done an injection moulded kit of Bluebird.

If my memory serves , the "BLACK FALCON,S" I have built had NO problems with the hull , keel or whatever .The thing is I do believe that either SMER or someone has gotten hold of the mold and modified it for a fish tank bubbler "NO JOKE!" I bought one and repaired where they broke the hull and put the masts and rigging as well as the guns and stern piece from a "BLACK FALCON" glue bomb .Everything fit like I remembered .It seems that the mold has made it around the block doesn,t it ? I still firmly believe the "BUBBLER" is the ACTUAL "BLACK FALCON" as done by AURORA .All the parts are dead on duplicates with the two AURORA ones I still have . The SMER ship may be that one OR it may be a "PIRATE SCHOONER" that LIFELIKE  had years ago . WHO KNOWS?       tankerbuilder