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Chebec 1/50

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  • Member since
    December 2002
Posted by Dreadnought52 on Monday, March 19, 2007 8:34 AM
 archi wrote:
Could anybody give me, please, any information where I could order HELLER kit: Chebec 1/50 and how my order should be performed?
I am very grateful in advance for any kind of information.


The Heller 1/50 Chebec has long been out of production and does go for quite a bit of money on eBay however, the 1/80 scale version by Imai, also out of production, but more common is also a great kit and sells for considerably less on eBay. Look for that one as well. WS

  • Member since
    February 2006
Posted by Grymm on Sunday, March 18, 2007 1:33 PM

Big Jake has had the kit for a while, and I just got mine a couple of weeks ago.  And yes, I got mine on Ebay.  JTilley is correct, the kit has been out of production for a long time.  I got lucky and saw a couple pop up for auction.  Expect to pay out the nose too.  The first one got up to over $200.  I back out on that one.  Got lucky on the second one.

But, if you can find it and you're willing to pay, it is a kit that to me is the best ever made.  It is absolutely stunning.

Grymm

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Sunday, March 18, 2007 6:48 AM

Welcome to the Forum!  Unfortunately you've picked a topic for your first post that, I'm afraid, isn't going to produce a welcome answer.

Heller is out of business.  For the past few years the company had a working relationship with the British company Airfix; both of them went belly-up a year or so ago.  There have been encouraging signs that another British firm, Hornby, is going to pick up the slack and reissue at least some of the Airfix kits.  That's based on information others have posted in the Forum; I haven't seen any formal announcement of the Hornby connection in the press.  Maybe another member is more up to date on this than I am.

The Heller chebec kit (which, if I remember correctly, was on 1/75 scale) was originally issued in the late 1970s, and was off the market for quite a while.  Some of the Heller sailing ship kits got re-released fairly recently, and distributed fairly widely in the U.S., but I don't think the chebec was one of them.  (Again, maybe somebody else has more accurate information on that point than I do.)  I haven't seen one in a hobby shop for many years.

A couple of Forum members are, I believe, working on the kit at the moment.  I believe they found theirs on E-bay.  That's frequently a good source for out-of-production kits.  The prices on E-bay range from incrdible bargains to ripoffs.  I've never bought anything on E-bay myself, but several other members use it pretty regularly.  For better or worse, E-bay is becoming a life-sustaining force for the small number of plastic sailing ship kit enthusiasts.  The kit manufacturers have just about abandoned us; E-bay, swap meets, and friendly fellow enthusiasts are just about the only sources there are.

Sorry to be so depressing about this.  Maybe somebody else can offer more encouragement.

 

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    March 2007
Chebec 1/50
Posted by archi on Saturday, March 17, 2007 6:02 PM
Could anybody give me, please, any information where I could order HELLER kit: Chebec 1/50 and how my order should be performed?
I am very grateful in advance for any kind of information.
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