One thing that's always puzzled me about the Revell Santa Maria: the crew figures. In those days Revell's representations of human beings were, beyond much argument, the best on the market. (Take a look at the ones that came with the little horse-drawn vehicle kits, the military vehicles, and the HO buildings.)
Dr. Thomas Graham's book on the company's history contains an interesting story about early Revell figures. It seems the artist who sculpted the masters for most of them was a gentleman named Tony Bulone. The original idea of putting figures in the kits was his. He carved the masters for the first ones on his own time, in a workshop he set up in a shed behind the apartment building where he lived, and showed some of the results to Lew Glaser, the president of the company. Glaser liked the idea, and figures started showing up in Revell kits.
From Dr. Graham's book, p. 44: "One of [Bulone's other] commissions was a slender, leggy doll inspired by a figure Mattel's Ruth Handler had seen in Europe. Bulone used his wife Lylis [no photo of her in the book, unfortunately] as his personal inspiration. Mattel thanked Bulone, paid him $800 for his sculpture work, and produced the doll under the name 'Barbie.'"
In those days Revell apparently had a miraculously precise three-dimensional pantograph machine. (I'd love to see a picture of it.) There are examples of Revell figures turning up in different kits pantographed down to different scales. I suspect Mr. Bulone carved all the masters on the same scale and had them pantographed down to the scales of the kits.
The Santa Maria was one of the first three Revell sailing ships (the others being the Constitution and H.M.S. Bounty.) They were on different scales, to fit in identically-sized boxes (which sold for $3.00). The Santa Maria was the first sailing ship I built - at about age seven. (I hate to think how much I must have mangled the thing - but my parents thought it was wonderful.) It had seven exquisite crew figures, including Columbus in fancy dress and a Spanish soldier with a breastplate and helmet. One of the seven, identified in the instructions as "the cannoneer," got recycled - at the same size - in the Bounty kit. I've used those figures in many models since then. (The Spanish soldier, slightly modified into a Continental Marine, is visible on the photo of my scratchbuilt Hancock in my avatar.)
The problem is that the Bounty and Santa Maria kits are quit obviously on different scales. (The Santa Maria is on a considerable larger scale than the 1/110 Bounty. I know that figure of 1/110 is right for the Bounty; I communed with that kit for a couple of years back in the 1970s.) If those figures in the Santa Maria kit were on the same scale as the rest of the model, the real ship would have been enormous.
I think the company's current description of the kit as being on 1/90 scale is about right. If so, the figures ought to be much bigger - bigger, in fact than the ones in the big Cutty Sark, Constitution, and Kearsarge kits (and their clones). On a 1/90-scale model those wonderful little guys in the kit are midgets.
I wonder what happened. I don't imagine we'll ever know.