Now that Jake mentions it I do remember the
Susquehanna. (Don't feel bad, Jake - I had to look up the spelling.) My knowledge of those Imai kits is pretty sketchy. They appeared right about the time I got out of college (and quit the hobby shop job that had put me through grad school), and my museum curator's salary wasn't enough to support a large-scale kit addiction. I think the only ones I actually bought were the
Cutty Sark and some of the 1/350 school ships.
I had an interesting experience regarding the Imai
Cutty Sark kit. Looking it over in a hobby shop, I was quite impressed with it - and told the shop proprietor so. He sort of rolled his eyes tolerantly and showed me a set of cast "bronzed metal" trailboards for the
Cutty Sark that one of those Italian plank-on-bulkhead companies had manufactured. They were distorted in proportions, out of scale, and in general caricatures of the real thing. When I expressed the opinion that the Imai plastic castings were more realistic, the proprietor - and several other customers who were in the shop - looked at me like I was crazy.
The interesting thing about that conversation was the venue: Maritime Models of Greenwich, a few hundred yards from the real
Cutty Sark. These people had walked past the ship on their way to the hobby shop. But they were so smitten with the notion that "wood kits are better than plastic ones" that they apparently had lost their ability to look at the products objectively.
I have a very vague recollection of seeing a box of 1/100 Japanese sailor figures in an Imai box at a hobby shop in Charlotte, back in about 1985. I wonder if that was the "crew" for one of the big Maru kits that Millard mentioned.
It seems a little odd that the same company would do the same ships in both 1/100 and 1/150 scales. The ones in the Squadron ad, under the Aoshima label, are both listed as 1/150. On the other hand, one is considerably more expensive than the other. I wonder if the more expensive one just might be on 1/100 scale.
Those prices are mind-boggling. On the other hand, the market for such kits, as we all know too well, is tiny. Those who want these kits probably would be well advised to grab them while they're available.