How are the mighty fallen

Sorry to hear about your ear!  I too had a nasty ear infection which lasted for over a month before antibiotics could finally wrestle it to the ground, but luckily, did not lose my hearing!

I agree, SOME of the Heller kits were quite good (the 1/72 'La Reale' and the big Chebec too were especially good!), but it amazed me how they could also produce such rubbish at the same time!  of course, a lot of the molds were bought up from Aurora and elsewhere, but it would have been nice if they had been updated at that time.  But 'pride goeth before a fall,' and I think a big reason Heller went under was because of a lack of updating to the same level as their competition.  I also recall they spent a LOT of effort producing kits that were specifically French, and while that is not necessarily a bad thing, it has a tendency to limit your clientele in the international market, especially when there are much more important subjects of wider interest that could have been produced with the same effort, and with greater sales as a result.  'Vive La Difference!'  But they still went down the tubes!

RALPH G WILLIAMS wrote:

kapudan_emir_effendi , Thanks for the good news and very good information. It's good to hear from you again. rg

Thank you Ralph I'm also happy to be able to write to the forum once again. Since 8 months I was battling with an illness which left my left ear permanently deaf, I just recovered enough to resume school and other daily routines. I hope to write regularly from now on.

Cheers

kapudan_emir_effendi ,

Thanks for the good news and very good information. It's good to hear from you again.

rg

searat12 wrote:

The closest to any standard scales in sailing ships came from Heller, with sailing ships in 1/200, 1/150, and 1/100 scale, and 1/400 for more modern warships but the sailing models were mostly rubbish for accuracy and it was apparently too late to fix the problem.

Hello,

I'd like to say some things about Heller's beautiful line of (predominantly) french sailing warships in 1/150 and 1/200.

To start with, all Heller kits of those scales are prepared from excellent monographies by the society of french naval museum's friends, which you can find on sale at their website. These are excellently drawn plans for scratchbuilders and as Heller kits' plans are often abysmal for rigging, I strongly recommend acquiring the corresponding monography. These plans are not only worthy for modelling but they are a piece of art themselves.

Among them Heller chose, for 1/200 scale:

Le Saint Louis & La Couronne: "Saint Louis" was a "Great Ship" or war galleon of 60 guns ordered to dutch shipbuilders by Cardinal Richelieu, french prime minister, in 1626 to bolster the French Navy against Spain. It participated into many engagements, including the successful retaking of Lerins Islands, in the thirty years war. She was broken up in 1650. Heller's model is a beautiful and accurate rendering of Saint Louis with delightful wood grain and planking detail and great carvings. It was also issued by airfix. Heller also made a typically infamous marketing stunt by producing a different set of upperworks for the same hull (to be fair they just replicated Admiral Edmond Paris' highly inaccurate reconstruction in late 19th century) and sold the resulting kit as "La Couronne", the 72 gun contemporary of the british "Sovereign of the Seas". Obviously, while the kit for "Saint Louis" is a serious scale model, that of "La Couronne" is not.

Le Royal Louis & Le Gladiateur: "Royal Louis" was a 116 gun three decker built by famous naval Architect Blaise Ollivier in 1758 and scrapped in 1773 after sustaining irreparable damage in dry dock. Again, It's a beautiful, accurate kit with superb carvings and fair wood grain-plank detail. But the fictitious "Le Gladiateur", built on the same hull with horrendous, ridiculous upperworks is another deception by Heller.

La Belle Poule: The famous 60 gun spar-decked frigate built in 1834 and carried the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte back to France in 1840. Again It's a superb, well accurate model. Fortunately Heller did not make a marketing stunt with this.

Now the kits in 1/150:

Le Phénix & La Sirene: In 1664, King Louis XIV's great finance and naval minister Colbert ordered a treatise upon ships and shipwrightry, richly illustrated with delightful engravings, both to serve as a manual for shipbuilders in Royal Dockyards and to impress the king about navy. In that treatise, known as "Atlas of Colbert", there is a series of abundantly detailed engravings showing all phases of the building of a 86 gun three decker, along with technical informations. While a ship with the decorations shown in the book was never built, four three deckers to the same hull shape and proportions were built between 1664-1692 (Royal Therese, Le Sceptre, Le Brilliant and Le Saint Philippe). Heller's "Le Phénix" is a model of that three decker class with the decorations as shown in the Colbert Atlas. Again the kit's hull is beautifully detailed and accurate, as are the masts and spars; I only don't like the lower gunports pierced for stubs masquerading as gun muzzles and the fact that this ship did never exist. However, both two problems can be well solved by some effort of craftmanship. The drawings of decorations for both the four actually built ships of that class are avaliable online. "La Sirene" is another deception similar to "La Couronne" and "Le Gladiateur", with awful upperworks to the hull of "Phenix".

Le Superbe & Le Glorieux: I'm sure that everybody with some interest to the age of sail know the legendary 74 gun french ship of the line, designed by perhaps the greatest naval architect of all the age of sail, Jacques Noel Sané; in 1782. More than a hundred examples of that floating classic are built and they served well until 1860s, some being converted to auxiliary steam while on stocks. the last example of the class, "HMS Implacable", ex-"Duguay-Trouin", captured at trafalgar, was scuttled in 1949. Members of that class served in British, Spanish and Dutch navies; while the Ottoman Navy built many of its ships upon that model from 1790s on. Le Superbe was one of the first Sané 74s, built in 1784 and sank on 30 January 1795 off Brest, during a storm. Heller's kit is quite good, with well accurate proportions and good grain detail, however detail for individual planks is lacking and the decks are all flat. Neverthless, it is the only existing plastic kit of one of the most important ship types in naval history and the fact that it's virtually devoid of any decorations makes possible to create any of the illustrious Sané 74s (there were many of them). "Le Glorieux" is another stunt by Heller, with a rather more decorated transom and different figurehead to the same hull. Although a french ship of the line by the name of Glorieux did exist, it was sunk at the battle of the Saintes in 1781, thus it was by no means a Sané 74.

Le Capricorne: A french naval brig from post-napoleonic wars period, mass produced and used in classic colonial policing and coast guard duties. Another good, accurate kit, however again Heller did laughable stunts upon that hull, including a late 19th century four mast barque (La Belle Etoile) passed as 1/250 scale !

searat12 wrote:

It will be interesting to see how things develop in the future, and I have not written off the future of sailing kits quite yet, and that is because if I had to predict the future of the model business and what kits might become available over the last 30 years, I would never have believed it.  These things seem to pop up from very small and obscure beginnings, and then in a couple years, the variety and availability suddenly explodes.  I remember when finding a WW1 airplane model was next to impossible (ever since Aurora went belly up and the Revell '3 in 1' lines disappeared), and only about a half dozen kits of any kind were around.  Then along came Eduard, and shortly after, a half dozen other companys in Eastern Europe suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, and now it is to the point that just about ANY WW1 aircraft can be obtained, each in about four different scales, and even different production runs of the same plane, with all the PE detailing and decals you can shake a stick at!  One thing I alweays found odd, is why the Japanese NEVER started to produce any WW1 planes (I think Hasegawa once produced a massive and massively expensive Fokker DR1, but I think that's it!)? Anyways, my point is this; just because nobody is producing sailing ship kits to speak of now, doesn't mean the situation cannot, or will not change in the future, and there is just no telling from what quarter the renaissance will come...... We just have to keep asking for them!

 

I exactly think so ! For example, Revell-Europe issued a beautiful all new tooling kit of Dutch east indiaman "Batavia" in 1/150 scale, when the replica of that ship was launched in 1995. We know also how Zvezda issued (albeit a very inaccurate) greek trireme and a Hanseatic Cog (a superb model) in 1/72 quite recently. There are a number of highly publicised replica ships currently building and some are about to be completed, for example the french frigate Hermione which carried Marquis de Lafayette to America in 1781 and Admiral de Ruyter's flagship "De Zeven Provincien". You may also have noted the recent reapparition of many of the oldie but goldie Revell sailing ships along with the slow but steady reissue of breathtaking old Imai kits by Aoshima. I'm well hopeful about the future of plastic ship models

just my two cents

Maybe I'm confused, but it looks like both you guys pretty much repeated everything I said above!  I wasn't speaking of airplanes or cars, just ships!  Modellers of the '50's and '60's were mostly young boys who at the time didn't care about scale or accuracy, and they bought what they were sold, and what they were sold fit into standardized boxes, not standardized scales (and used approximately the same amount of plastic).  All the Airfix sailing ships (Vasa, etc), were all in the same sized box for the same price (I think they still are).  All the Revell ships in a 'line' (advertised around the outside of the box) were in the same sized box for the same price, with different 'lines' in larger, or smaller standardised boxes at standardised prices, and the scales were all over the shop!  Lindberg did the same thing, and so did Aurora.  This was not done for any other reason than to standardise production costs, and certainly had nothing to do with scale accuracy, etc.  The closest to any standard scales in sailing ships came from Heller, with sailing ships in 1/200, 1/150, and 1/100 scale, and 1/400 for more modern warships but the sailing models were mostly rubbish for accuracy and it was apparently too late to fix the problem.  As far as I can see, until Revell of Germany, it appears that Revell never even tried to deal with, or even recognised that there WAS a problem!  Look folks, if most of your competition is cranking out highly detailed kits at 1/700, and everyone is buying them, why on God's green earth would you come out with a line in 1/720? Or 1/570?  Yes, it's nice to reminisce about the 'good old days' when Revell, Airfix, etc were the ONLY kits a boy could buy (mine came from the local hardware store when I was a kid, and were way up on a wall where the kids couldn't fool with them!), but really, the models out today and even the Japanese kits in the '70's just blow those old kits right out of the water (and come to think of it, I seem to recall that is exactly what happened to most of my models when I was a kid anyways!). 

Want to take a trip down memory lane?  Here's a challenge!  Go buy one of those big motorized Lindberg kits of HMS Hood (you know, the one with the turrets that go back and forth as it motors around in a circle? I'm pretty sure they STILL make that bomb!), and then buy the recent offering of the same ship by Trumpeter, and after one look, my guess is that Lindberg kit will be closed AND forgotten in VERY short order!

Quite frankly, even as a boy I had a hard time understanding this production 'logic,' though despite the splendid accuracy of the Japanese waterline kits, I still preferred the Revells, but that was for one simple reason; you got the full hull!

It will be interesting to see how things develop in the future, and I have not written off the future of sailing kits quite yet, and that is because if I had to predict the future of the model business and what kits might become available over the last 30 years, I would never have believed it.  These things seem to pop up from very small and obscure beginnings, and then in a couple years, the variety and availability suddenly explodes.  I remember when finding a WW1 airplane model was next to impossible (ever since Aurora went belly up and the Revell '3 in 1' lines disappeared), and only about a half dozen kits of any kind were around.  Then along came Eduard, and shortly after, a half dozen other companys in Eastern Europe suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, and now it is to the point that just about ANY WW1 aircraft can be obtained, each in about four different scales, and even different production runs of the same plane, with all the PE detailing and decals you can shake a stick at!  One thing I alweays found odd, is why the Japanese NEVER started to produce any WW1 planes (I think Hasegawa once produced a massive and massively expensive Fokker DR1, but I think that's it!)?

Anyways, my point is this; just because nobody is producing sailing ship kits to speak of now, doesn't mean the situation cannot, or will not change in the future, and there is just no telling from what quarter the renaissance will come...... We just have to keep asking for them!

We need to be fair about this.  Revell was in fact a pioneer in the concept of standardized scales for plastic kits.

In the fifties, like most of its competition, it issued cars in 1/16, 1/32, and 1/25.  Two British companies, Frog and Airfix, took the lead in establishing 1/72 as a standard aircraft kit scale (though it seems the first popular application of it was in the form of the "recognition models" made for the U.S. armed forces during World War II).  It took a little while for American manufacturers to get on the 1/72 bandwagon, but Revell was the first to do so.  The first Revell 1/72-scale aircraft, according to Dr. Graham's book, appeared in 1962.  It was a B-17F, and was followed within a year by the beginning of a large range of single-engined fighters.  Ten Revell 1/32 aircraft kits were on the shelves by the end of the sixties.  From then on, virtually all Revell aircraft kits, except reissues of oldies from the fifties and early sixties, were in either 1/144, 1/72, 1/48, or 1/32.

The Revell ship line did lag behind the others initially.  By the end of the fifties several other companies had settled on standard scales for warships:  Airfix and Aurora on 1/600, Frog and Renwall on 1/500, Heller on 1/400, and, of course, the numerous diecast manufacturers (and the long-lamented British plastic company Eaglewall) on 1/1200 and 1/1250.  It appears that the Japanese, Americans, and Europeans had the idea of a new, more-or-less universally standardized scale for plastic warship kits at just about the same time:  in the late sixties.  For some reason or other (I wonder if the reasons are written down somewhere; I rather doubt it) the Japanese "Waterline Series" consortium (Aoshima, Fujimi, Hasegawa, and Tamiya) and, eventually, Matchbox picked 1/700, while Revell and Italeri picked 1/720.  The first Revell 1/720 kits, according to Dr. Graham's book, were released in 1967:  the Arizona, Prinz Eugen, and the two-for-one Ark Royal and Tribal-class destroyer.  That Revell 1/720 series eventually reached about seven kits (not counting re-boxings under different names - or Italeri kits in Revell boxes).  While that series was running, Revell did continue issuing warships (a handful of new kits and numerous reissues of older ones) in various "fit the box" scales.  It also made a half-hearted stab at a new standardized scale of its own, 1/570 (with a Scharnhorst, Prince of Wales, and one of its all-time best-sellers, the Titanic.)  I have no idea what the reasoning behind that choice of scale was; it may well have been connected with box sizes.

Apart from the big 1/96 series (the Cutty Sark, Kearsarge, Constitution, and their various clones), Revell never standardized on a scale for sailing ships.  But neither has any other manufacturer - plastic or wood.  Many of the Revell sailing ships were indeed scaled to fit in standardized boxes.  The very first one, the old original Constitution, was on a standard scale:  1/192, or 1/16"=1'.  My theory (which is based on logic rather than any evidence) is that the designers picked that scale because it made sense, designed a box to fit that particular kit, and then, when the kit sold reasonably well, started making other sailing ships to fit the box that had been designed around the Constitution.  Hence the weird scales of almost all the other Revell sailing ships - except the Golden Hind, which happened to fit in the standard box at 1/96 scale.

It's also worth noting that the concept of "constant scale" plastic ship models didn't really take off until the very late sixties and early seventies.  By then Revell was in the process of dropping out of the sailing ship business.  The excellent Charles W. Morgan (about 1/110) was released in 1968, and the almost as nice yacht America (1/56) in 1969.  After that Revell only issued one genuinely new sailing ship:  the Viking Ship (in 1975).  Every Revell sailing ship since then (except those originating with Revell Germany) has been a reissue of a kit from the fifties or sixties. 

The plastic sailing ship, in other words, died before the concept of standardizing scales really hit the plastic ship kit industry.  There are many explanations for that fact, but I agree with Bondoman:  the absence of a standardized scale isn't one of them.

Searat I think you propose a couple of conclusions that are debatable. In a friendly way, of course.

First of all, I for one spent my paper boy money in the early 60's mostly on account of the following:

Box art

Price

Ever notice how older kits have the other offerings in the "series" around the side of the box? That was a BIG deal. There wasn't otherwise any way to know what was out there except by asking the hobby shop person, who in my bicycle radius was a nasty old lady who smelled like her cat and didn't know a thing. Or, the precursor to big boxes, Maximart, where the person who sold models also sold dolls.

Brand loyalty. I liked Revell, because the kits were informative and good looking, plus at least in aircraft there was scale continuity.

But in ships it was glorious. Airfix, Tyco, Lindberg, Revell, Aurora, Heller.

Scale however was not an issue to me or my friends. Even though I ended up an Architect, is was the look, plus the ability to build a "collection", that mattered.

We'd be on the playground in 3rd grade 1961 and some kid sez, " My dad bought me the Revell Bismark!". You had to knock out a couple of teeth. Then ask, "really!!!"

In conclusion, in their genesis these kits were for kids who saved up and plunked a buck for the "Essex" never mind it was 1?527.4 or whatever, but it had little planes and a big decal that said "Beware Jet Blast" and if you needed to, you could put the Missouri next to it.

A BIG problem with Revell/Monogram that has hurt them for a long time is the fact that they have no standard scales for their models at all, which makes them incompatible with anything by anyone else, or even with each other.  Not sure how they missed this trend, which really kicked in during the '70's when companys like Tamiya and other came out with whole lines in 1/700, 1/500, 1/450. etc.  Part of this problem is that when Revell and the other American model manufacturers got going back in the '50's, they built their models to fit a standard box-size for a standard price, rather than make the box fit the kit.  While this makes sense from a production standardisation point of view, this is the sort of stupidity generally bred by MBA's, not modellers!  And to to be fair, it probably DID make sense back then, as most modellers were young boys at the time, and didn't really give much thought to scale or accuracy. 

But when the trend began to change in the '70's with the introduction of the many excellent offerings from Tamiya and the rest of the Japanese, you would have thought Revell and the other American outfits would have picked up on this and revised their molds and production lines in order to compete.  They wouldn't, couldn't, and in any case didn't, and now they are all in trouble, saddled with ancient and unsatisfactory offerings for the current modelling crowd in the most bizarre scales.  Frankly, I think the only reason they still sell anything is because a FEW of their offerings are simply unavailable elsewhere (but that list has been dwindling for many years now). 

That said, the Revell of Germany boys have been making some good efforts to come up with some sort of standardisation and vast improvements in accuracy, such as the various 1/72 and 1/144 scale submarines that have come out recently.  If they are smart, they would take a bigger stab at getting into the quite lucrative 1/350 scale warships and start phasing out the old rubbish entirely.  I notice there is now a quite good Bismarck out from Revell in this scale, and if they want to REALLY make a splash (since just about everybody and their uncle makes a 1/350 Bismarck already), they would come out with a 1/350 Prinz Eugen as well!

Shalom, I asked Revell about the availability of the 1/96 Cutty Sark and Constitution. The following is the response:

>They are still available you can order them from www.omnimodels.com


>Thanks Sean
>Revell Consumer Services
>800-833-3570

>Making quality matter one kit at a time.
>>
>>From: Benjamin A. Zabriskie
>>Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 4:51 PM
>>To: Revell Consumer Service
>>Subject: 1/96 Ships

>>I am looking at your on-line catalog. I do see the 1/96 Cutty Sark or Constitution. Have they been discontinued?

>>Ben

According to Omni Models, they are available for $51.99 for the Cutty Sark, and $63.99 for the Revell/Germany Constitution.

The last several posts have correctly identified several elements of this whole issue. 

We are, I think, in the midst of a "golden age" of ship modeling.  The amount of information available to the modeler, in the form of books, periodicals, websites, etc., is far greater than it was thirty years ago (which, in the whole history of ship modeling, is a rather short time).  Firms like the Conway Maritime Press, the Naval Institute Press, and Chatham Publications have given us dozens - even hundreds - of books and articles that make information about the prototypes far more accessible than it was for our parents and grandparents.  But the stuff isn't cheap, and one doesn't find much of it in hobby shops.  The sailing ship modeler has to get in the habit of hanging out at libraries and museums - and if he/she doesn't live within driving distance of any such institutions, or have the money to buy the books over the web, he/she has a problem.

I agree completely with those who say the web has the potential to be the best source of information and advice ever for ship modelers - and modelers of all ilks.  The unlimited space for conversations, the infinite flexibility of discussion groups, and the potential for the convenient posting of information, all have the potential to be real boons to the hobby.  Some basic ship modeling texts (e.g., Cambell and Mondfeld [sp?]) are already available on the web; one hopes that trend will continue.

Everybody who's ever tried to make money from the hobby business knows what dostacos is talking about.  It's almost inevitable:  the better and more experienced a modeler gets, the more time he spends on each model, and the less money he spends.  (The little model of the frigate Hancock that appears in my avatar may have $200 worth of materials in it.  Building it took me six years.  The hobby dealer who relies for his living on people like me will go broke in a hurry.)  I'm not prepared to assert that sailing ship modeling is the most difficult or challenging form of modeling there is; if I did that I'd get lots of legitimate arguments from veteran aircraft, armor, car, and railroad modelers.  (Has anybody out there ever read Gerald Wingrove's book on scratchbuilt car modeling?)  But a sailing ship model inevitably takes a considerable amount of time.  An experienced airplane modeler can produce several fine models (from good kits) in the time it takes an equally experienced sailing ship modeler to build one of the same relative quality.

It may be that the plastic sailing ship kit was, in economic terms, a fundamentally flawed concept from the beginning.  I don't see much hope that this particular phase of the hobby will be brought back to life.  But I do wish some of those excellent old Revell kits (and, for that matter, the ones from Imai, and several other manufacturers) would come back. 

 mention of the Cutty Sark reminds me of my high school best friend. His father had this kit in his den behind class. the ship had a nautical map as a backround and a letter from IIRC {35+ years ago} the British Admiralty. He had written about some specifics regarding rigging. 

each piece of the standing & working rigging was tied off with the proper knot, etc. This is the ONLY model to my knowledge his dad made. {he was a mechanical engineer..for the want of a better word, he was a rocket scientist }

My point being, how many kits can they sell for that type of modeler? {I am sure the happy campers here have that type of skill and desire, but not me. I stick with armor because I don't have to worry about rigging, or PE hatches and watertight doors, or canopy masking or even the rigging for WWI planes} 

that is my

After looking at Donnie's build of the 'Capt,.Kidd' aka Wappen Von Hamburg by Lindberg I think it to be the nicer kit.

rg

Aaronw wrote:

I doubt Revell USA will be going out of buisness anytime soon. They came under new management last year and at least in the car model segment they have been doing a good job of bringing out new kits and re-issues many with new parts or corrected parts.

According to Wikipedia, Monogram was formed in 1945 by two former employees of Comet Kits, Jack Besser and Bob Reder. The company was purchased by Mattel Inc. in the early 1970's, and then by Odyessy Partners of New York in 1986. Later that same summer Odyessy also purchased Revell Models of Venice, California; subsequently Odyessy Partners quietly merged the "unprofitable Revell" with the "highly profitable Monogram", the Revell name being gradually phased into the product lines due to Revell's world wide brand recognition. The Monogram name is currently used exclusively on the company's high end "Pro Modeler Kits".

In May 2007, Hobbico Inc. (Champaign, IL; Home of the Fighting Illini) announced the acquisition of Revell-Monogram LLC.

 

  In my point of view, two other factors explain the current lack of interest in plastic sailing ships:

- difficulty in easily finding reliable sources: as it has been pointed out, most model kit customers nowadays are adults; they want a decent-looking kit in their living room, not a model looking like a "somewhat-elaborate-toy" from the 50s or 60s. What they are after is accuracy and as well as detail.

Now, if somebody decides to build an aircraft or a tank, or even a WWI/II ship, he can usually find tons of reference information on the internet, not to mention nearby public libraries. But if somebody, without any shipbuilding experience whatsoever, wants to build a sailing ship, he will quickly find out that useful sources (for modeling, that is) are not only scarce, but difficult to identify as such. For instance, it's fairly easy to find out how to rig a sailing ship, but finding out what exact colors to use is another story, especially if one builds a relatively unknown or minor ship.

So in my point of view, getting the right books or information to be able to accurately build a sailing ship model is a time-consuming process - especially if one discards internet searches - and it can be intimidating to many. And since the information is usually stored in books, one would have to order them, and they can be quite expensive (one of the costliest being Boudriot's famous book "Le vaisseau de 74 canons", worth 650$)

Also, building a sailing ship model implies mastering some pretty complicated techniques, such as the rigging or the painting of the deck to make it look like wood. Finding information or tutorials explaining these techniques is also a difficult affair, unlike airbrushing or other more commonly used techniques.

- lack of aftermarket parts to enhance the model: most aircraft/vehicle/modern ship kits have their own dedicated PE sets to enhance the model. Even those old Revell cargo ships from the 50s can be greatly enhanced by a few PE sets, which can be easily found on the web. But there is virtually nothing as such for sailing ships. I know that one could get extra parts from the wooden model kits industry, but finding the relevant pieces for a particular kit is still difficult for the unexperienced. In order to get some useful modeling tips, one usually has to dig into forgotten magazine issues, into the rare reviews made by other modelers, or into forums like this one. But I fear few have enough time to do that (and Google doesn't help a lot, given all the commercial sites you get nowadays)

On a more positive note, I believe that internet, and especially forums like this one, can tremendously help to keep the plastic sailing ship industry alive. It lets people share their passion with others, discuss the kits and their historical inaccuracies. But most important of all, people who "dare" to post pictures of their models can be a huge motivation factors for others to build the same kit. For instance, when Donnie posted pictures of his excellent work on the Lindberg's "la Flore" (aka Jolly Rogers), I'm quite sure that a few casual readers decided to give it try themselves, especially given the fact that Donnie's threads were full of useful information! And to those who thought that the Lindberg kit was crap, it offered a perfect opportunity to judge by themselves before buying the kit.

I just wish that more forum members would do the same; after all, even if a model is far from perfection, one almost never gets harsh critics from other modelers, but will likely be praised for his work (accurately building a sailing ship model is never an easy task), with the addition of a few kind suggestions!

I agree that, sadly, our hobby is becoming an "old man's game" because of cost alone. Just getting a few bottles of paint and some brushes can set you back $10 or more, and $10 is still $10, and a lot of money to anyone who doesn't have a job.

I know if I didn't subsidize my daughter's modeling activities, i.e., pay for everything, she'd never do it on her own, even though she enjoys it and seems to get some satisfaction from it.

While I don't necessarily believe our hobby is dying, sometimes it does feel like the people who go to college to learn how to do print journalism these days - will that even exist in a few more decades?

If I remember correctly (an increasingly dubious proposition), the Oriana was one of the "special anniversary" reissues from Revell Europe a year or so ago.  Others included the "cutaway" Boeing 747, the Jupiter C missile, and the "Guided Missile Fleet Gift Set" (with the Norton Sound replaced by the seaplane tender Currituck). I imagine some of those kits are still floating around - though I can't recall seeing any of them here in the U.S.

The Morgan surely was one of the nicest of the Revell sailing ships - and, by any reasonable standard, the best whaler in plastic.  That's precisely the sort of kit I wish the company would make available again, either by reissuing it or putting the molds in the hands of somebody else.

A couple of things probably ought to be said in defense of the astronomical prices referred to earlier.  One - the reorientation of the model business from kids' pastime to adult hobby has completely changed the demographic picture.  In the good olde dayes it could be taken for granted that a new kit would sell tens of thousands of units.  (I don't have any special insights into this, but when I was working in a hobby shop, back in the seventies, it was said that an American manufacturer's first production run on a new kit would routinely be 100,000 copies.  I have no idea what the modern figure is, but I suspect it's tiny by comparison.  So the manufacturer has to get back its initial investment by means of far fewer sales.  Hence the temptation to reissue 54-year-old kits, the investment in which has long since be recouped.) 

Two - the phenomenon isn't unique to ship models.  Take a look at the prices of the latest aircraft or armor kit.  The Revell 1/40-scale Sherman tank, if I remember correctly, cost a dollar and a half in its first release.  The latest 1/35 Sherman from Dragon costs more than fifty dollars.  The improvement in quality is mind-blowing - but the prices of all plastic kits (not just ships) have risen far faster than inflation.  (We took up that point in another thread recently.)  Whether your favorite area is ships, aircraft, AFVs, cars, or any other phase of the hobby, the days of spending your pocket money in the hobby shop and bringing home a stack of new kits are long gone.

It's sad. I very fondly remember the Charles W. Morgan and the Oriana, gone forever I assume.

RALPH G WILLIAMS wrote:

The price of ship models could be a factor.

No lie.  Did you see the MSRP for the 1/700 Repulse in this month's FSM?   If you haven't, it's US$51, as in half a c-note for a waterline only 1/700 kit.  Ok, it's brand new, you get 200 parts for that, and it's a long-awaited, but middling narrow-focus kit, but sheesh, isn't that a resin kit sort of price?

Well, I think it is as much that the business model has changed, as much as the clientele.  The idea of having a shoppe for people to come in, browse, chat and buy things is probably dead.  The price of business overhead (building rental, employees, medical, etc, etc, etc,) is so prohibitive that the in my opinion, it is unlikely that any new shoppes will be established, or succeed.  That said, the online business world is another story altogether, and it appears that there is plenty of money to be made with the right strategy (Squadron is probably one of the founders of this sort of strategy).  Fancy models cost big bucks, with a big profit margin.  Crappy cheap models sold as a sideline in Woolworths (where I used to buy MY crappy cheap little models when I was kid; thank God for Pyro!) have an extremely SMALL profit margin, and can only depend upon high volume sales to be worthwhile. 

On this basis, it would seem to me that there IS room in the market for some high-end styrene sailing ship models, and to me, it seems INCREDIBLE that somebody like Revell, or whoever, missed the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' gravy train so badly!!!   For God's sake, here are at LEAST three, maybe as many as SIX sailing ship models that could be produced from those movies that have an ALREADY ESTABLISHED fan base, but all that is available is some stupid 'action figures' from some crappy outfit in China. 

THAT is the sort of thing that really pisses me off as a modeller, and THAT is the sort of market STUPIDITY that makes me say to dying companys like Revell of America, 'So long, and thanks for all the fish!' 

I wonder what the price of those molds would be to purchase, if they were for sale.

my local LHS still has the 1/96 cutty. I just don't know if my wife would be ok with the price.....

I'm glad I don't work for a kit manufacturer - or, for that matter, a hobby shop - today.  The business is indeed undergoing a "sea change," and there have been lots of casualties.  There undoubtedly will be more.

I worked as a clerk in a hobby shop from about 1973 to 1980.  (My memory of when I started is getting a little hazy.)  Even in those days it was a tough business.  The boss bought almost all the merchandise on credit, with the bills coming due at the end of every January.  In early January, after the Christmas rush (such as it was), he'd do the books and find out whether he was still in business or not.

About half of our customers in those days were either kids or adults buying stuff for kids.  A friend of mine owns an excellent hobby shop in Newport News, Virginia.  A year or so ago he and I got into a conversation about how few kids seemed to be building models nowadays.  I commented that the younger set seemed to be deserting the hobby shops in favor of video games, etc.  My friend said, "Where have you been?  That happened twenty years ago."  I asked him how many of his regular customers were under 18 years old.  He laughed bitterly and said "Zero."  Model building, for better or worse, has become almost exclusively an adult hobby.

The whole distribution has changed fundamentally as well.  The plethora of kits, detail parts, decal sheets, etc. for experienced ship, aircraft, AFV, and car modelers - to say nothing of the model railroaders - has reached that point where, I suspect, the only sort of hobby shop that can afford to stock even a reasonable percentage of it is one in a big city, with a huge clientele.  The old-fashioned "mom and pop" hobby shop can't afford the investment it takes to keep up.  So the traditional customers on whom the old hobby shops used to rely now do business over the web.  (I'd be interested to see a statistic about the percentage of plastic kit sales that take place in hobby shops - or any other traditional "face-to-face" retail outlets.  My guess is that if web sales aren't in the majority already, they will be pretty soon.)

But some firms have, one way or another, adjusted their ways of doing business so they can compete in the "new" world of model building.  Hasegawa, Tamiya, Dragon, Trumpeter, etc. seem to be doing remarkably well.  So, for that matter, does Revell Europe.  Maybe Revell U.S.A. can, indeed, simply not compete with them.

I don't blame anybody who wants to get out of the model business.  If Revell's management wants to abandon ship modeling for financial reasons, I can't argue. 

I repeat the point with which I started this thread:  if Revell's executives want to drop out of the ship model game, they ought to sell or lease those nice old molds to somebody else.  The world of modeling is the worse off for the absence of such kits as the Revell 1/96 Constitution and Cutty Sark - among others.  If Revell U.S.A. can't make money off them, maybe somebody else can.  And nothing is going to convince me that putting that poor old 1954 Missouri a new box and promoting it as a "new release" constitutes anything other than deceptive merchandising.

P.S.  As of a few minutes ago, Squadron Mail Order still listed the 1/96 Constitution - in both Revell-Monogram and Revell Germany boxes (for different prices).  Anybody who wants one of those grand old kits may want to snap it up now.  It looks like the time may be coming - soon - when the only place to find it will be on e-bay. (The 1/96 Cutty Sark seems to be gone already.)

When I moved to Sarasota 22 years ago there were eight hobby shops within 20 miles of my house, including one exclusive train shop and one wooden ship shop (that held Saturday morning group building classes).

They're all long gone except for the train shop and a new place that is 99% RC stuff. 

The local IPMS chapter just folded due to lack of interest.

Not good signs if you're looking to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in research, design, tooling and distribution of new plastic ship models. 

You can't ignore the economics.  There's got to be a well-defined market opportunity for the kit manufacturers to justify the financial expenditure, even if it's just re-releasing older kits.  While I suspect there still may be a strong niche market (populated by folks like us on this forum), my guess is that any significant new plastic sailing ship kit would have to be offered at plank-on-frame kit prices (read multi $100's) to make it economically viable for the manufacturer. 

I can't fault Revell or any other kit manufacturers for the path they have taken - especially in uncertain economic times.  At the end of the day the kit manufacturers are responsible to their owners/stockholders, not to us.  You can lament the changes in our society/interests/hobbies, etc., but don't blame the model companies for reacting as responsible businesses to the lack of demand and/or profit opportunity.

Mark 

 

Rabapla - Welcome to the Forum! 

The answer to your question is yes.  I don't completely understand the corporate intricasies of the Revell brands, but I have the impression that the American and European companies are virtually independent of each other.  Revell Germany (or Revell Europe, as it seems to be calling itself now) offers a much bigger range of ship kits - including some really outstanding ones, as well as reissues of some good (and not-so-good) old American Revell kits.  But the current U.S. Revell list only includes the ten ships that I listed in the first post of this thread.

 

may I just add that there are 2 1/72 german U-boot VII C, 2 different german WW II schnellboote in 1/72, all exzellent? and a lot of other stuff in different sales......................

is it that You are talking about revell USA? 

I didn't think you were putting down car models, just possibly over simplifying. Your point about recycling common parts actually makes sense but that doesn't seem to happen as much as you would think for some reason. I know for example Revell has a couple of different Ford flat head V8's and while its the same motor they are not the same, some are more desirable to kit bashers than others due to the details. I do get what you are saying though, the model companies really can not just crank out 6 battleship kits with different decals for the different ships in the class since each one may have minor or even fairly major differences even though they are "the same ship". There can be enough difference in one ship to be worthy of a new kit based on what part of its service life is being modeled. 

Since I build a little of everything I just find it kind of interesting to see some of the misconceptions between the various parts of the hobby. Cars and ships tend to get a reputation of being rather basic builds, cars are toylike and ships are well, grey and all kind of look the same. Armor guys weather their builds to hide their mistakes and aircraft guys are the ultimate rivit counters. Space builders are well, lets just say both of the guys that build space models must buy a lot of kits. 

Anyway off on a tangent, I just found it odd to see the opinion that Revell is headed down the tubes since in other parts of modelling people are raving about their return.

jtilley, thanks for you comments on the Lindberg kits, I was looking at some of them so its nice to see the ones I'm considering are fairly decent.

Aaronw wrote:

The comment about cars being able to reuse parts from one kit to another, that is not really true. Auto builders can be just as nit picky as any ship or aircraft builder, they just tend to be more open to artistic license due to the popularity of custom cars so haven't acquired as much of a reputation for rivit counting. I have seen people just rip into auto kits for providing generic tires instead of tires marked with a brand, or complaining that a coupe has the roofline of the sedan the kit was based on. One of the changes made when Revell re-issued their '50 Ford Pickup was to redesign the heads on the motor, in the earlier version of the kit the shape of the heads was criticised for being inaccurate. A manufacturer would never get away with putting a Chevy motor in a Ford kit unless it was being sold as a custom car. Putting generic parts in a car kit would go over about as well as putting generic aircraft on an aircraft carrier kit. Interesting discussion, I build a little bit of everything but I find it quite interesting to see how people focused on one particular part of modeling think and want they want from their kits.

Actually, I was not attempting to denigrate the car modellers by any means!  I was thinking more along the lines of a good mold for a Chevy engine block is going to work for just about any Chevy in the same scale, same goes for tires, shocks, trannies, etc. And the same for Porsche parts, Ford parts, and so on.  Thus, if I am a model manufacturer, if I want to come out with say, a model of the latest Corvette, I can reuse about 80% of the subordinate mold elements that were sculpted for last years' version, and only really need to tweak the body panels, interior bits, etc..... 

That doesn't really work with individual, more or less 'one of a kind' ships too well (IJN Akagi is a perfect example), and this is why you will often see manufacturers come out with models that have a variety of sisterships in very short order (and on the same basis that I have described above).   To some extent, this can even be done with some sailing ships.  Heller came closest to this with their quite good 1/150 French 74's before they sloped off into lethargy and sloth, producing some real dogs, and of course, Revell tried to do the same thing with the USS Constitution/USS United States, and Cutty Sark/Thermopylae, but with a lot less success.

Finally, I would just like to say that I have the highest admiration for the plank on frame scratch-builder, but like most people, have neither the time, nor patience to achieve that level of sophistication (it would be nice though, to just tell all the model manufacturers to go to Hell and do it for yourself!).

I think I can identify all of them - though I'm not 100% certain.  I don't think any of them originated with Revell, but most originated somewhere other than with Lindberg.  Here goes.

The shrimp boat, Coast Guard patrol boat, "Captain Kidd," "Jolly Roger," and "Flying Dutchman" are original Linberg kits, all of them dating originally from the fifties and sixties.  The "Captain Kidd" was originally the German convoy ship Wappen von Hamburg.  The "Jolly Roger" and "Flying Dutchman" are the same kit, except (I think) for the color of the plastic.  Both of them are reboxings of the French eighteenth-century frigate La Flore.  Both La Flore and the Wappen von Hamburg have gotten quite a bit of attention here in the Forum; a search on either name will turn up some interesting posts.

The Sea Witch is (I think) a reissue of an extremely old, but not bad, kit originally produced by the Marx toy company in the early or mid-fifties.  It's gotten quite a bit of Forum attention recently too.

The others are, I think, all old Pyro kits from the fifties.  At least two, the tug and the "North Atlantic Fishing Trawler," are copies of Model Shipways solid-hull wood kits.  (The two gentlemen who founded Model Shipways referred to Pyro as "Pirate Plastics.") The tug's original name was Dispatch No. 9, and the trawler's name was Hildina.

That little Golden Hind (it's about six inches long) brings back particularly pleasant memories; my mother bought me one at the local drugstore for 50 cents when I was in grade school.  It bears scarcely any resemblance to a real ship, of course, but it was great fun to build and paint.  Pyro made a series of sailing ships that cost 50 cents apiece.

By the standards of the modern scale modeler, they range from pretty good (the shrimp boat, CG patrol boat, trawler, tug, lightship, Flore, Wappen von Hamburg, Sea Witch, and "Tuna Clipper") to the awful (the little ex-50-cent Pyro kits.)  In any case, a fun trip down memory lane.

Are any of these the kits you are talking about? Lindberg has quite a history of buying molds from other companies and these ships are some you mentioned although I don't know if they are the same molds.

http://www.lindberg-models.com/models-in_the_water4.html

 

The tipoff to whether a Revell kit is American or European is usually the box.  Revell Europe (I think that's what they call it now - rather than "Revell Germany") kits are (with some exceptions) packaged in blue or grey end-opening boxes with either paintings or photos of the prototype (aircraft, ship, auto, or whatever) on top, small photos of the model on the sides, and color ads on the bottom.  The European boxes also have text in about a dozen languages on the sides.  Revell USA boxes, at least until recently, had the "Revell-Monogram" logo, fewer foreign languages, lift-off lids (usually) and (usually) blank bottoms; the main illustration on the top usually (though not always) is a photo of the finished model.  I guess the Monogram connection is a thing of the past now; I imagine we'll start seeing a new form of U.S. Revell box.

The question of interchangeable parts is interesting.  Aaronw's remark about how car modelers wouldn't tolerate a Chevy engine in a model of a Ford strikes a familiar chord. 

Theoretically some parts should be interchangeable between ship models.  American warships of WWII, for instance, shared many mass-produced components - guns, radar screens, liferafts, boats, catapults, cranes, rail stanchions, hatch covers, etc., etc.  And warship classes, by definition, share basic hull and superstructure configurations.  (Though I'm sure no two Fletcher-class destroyers were absolutely identical, some of them came pretty close.)People who know their way around the subject know which generic parts are applicable to which ships.  So do competent, conscientious, and ethical kit designers.

On the other hand, Revell has become notorious over the years for recycling pieces that most emphatically should not be interchangeable.  Contrary to what the company would have its naive customers believe, the Cutty Sark and the Thermopylae did not have identical hulls.  Neither did the Stag Hound and the Flying Cloud.  Or the U.S.C.G.C. Eagle and S.M.S. Seeadler.  Perhaps Revell's most notorious merchandising stunt ever was its "H.M.S. Beagle" kit, which we've talked about many times here in the Forum.  It's a modified reissue of the company's H.M.S. Bounty.  (The real Beagle and Bounty resembled each other only in that each of them had a hull, a deck, and three masts.)  Stunts like that have, I suspect, been largely responsible for the snobbish attitudes that so many wood ship modelers take toward plastic kits. 

To be fair, Revell was no worse in this regard than Heller, some of whose modified reissues were utterly preposterous caricatures that, if enlarged to full size, wouldn't have floated.  And some of the wood HECEPOB (that's Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead)manufacturers (the likes of Mamoli, Mantua, Artesania Latina, etc.) have perpetrated horrors that, arguably, are just as bad.

In several other Forum threads I've asked the rhetorical question:  If a manufacturer slapped a couple of jet engines on its B-17 kit and called it a B-52, how would the modeling public react?  Or how about that Ford with the Chevy engine?  That's the magnitude of what Revell did with its "Beagle."  Ship modelers, it seems, are expected to take such things (and worse) in stride.

Aaronw obviously knows what he's talking about.  I hope the trend toward reissuing decent old kits that he notes in the realm of the automotive extends into the ship model world.  Some of those old Revell sailing ship kits really did represent the state of the art when they were originally released - and could stand up pretty well against the competition today.  (I'm thinking of the Flying Cloud, Charles W. Morgan, Golden Hind, Mayflower, and Viking ship - all excellent potential bases for serious scale models.  There were several others.)  Yes - Revell was indeed one of the leaders if not the leader, in plastic ship models (both sail and power) for several decades.  And I repeat:  If the company simply doesn't care about ship models any more, maybe it should sell (or lease) the molds to somebody who has what it takes to appreciate them.

Auto models have been somewhat stagnant the past 4-5 years, as the major US manufacturers were under the management of bean counters rather than actual modelers who understood what is wanted by us the consumer. Lindberg and Revell both came under new management in 2007 and so far have been doing a great job bringing back old kits, updating old kits and bringing out completely new kits. AMT / Ertl has come under new management this year and is showing the potential to follow Revell and Lindberg.

Whether this new enthusiam will carry over into ships and aircraft who knows. Personally I was not aware any of the US companies had ever been a strong contender in ship models. Granted that is not an area I know well and most of those kits were probably made when I was quite young since several you list sound like they were kitted in the 60's (I was born in '67).

Most of my ship building has been for others, my Dad is big on WW2 ships and he used to buy kits for me to build, so I built what he bought. Others have been for co-workers who are not modelers but wanted a model of the ship they served on in the Navy so again, I built what they provided. My experience with non-Japanese ship kits has been that they are rather toylike (the Iowa class mentioned above being one I did) unlike the very detailed Japanese kits, so it is rather surprising to me, to find Revell at one time was considered a leader in ship models.

As far as Revell vs Revell of Germany, to be honest I have a hard time telling them apart since the boxes frequently just say Revell but reading the fine print I find it is an ROG kit. 

The comment about cars being able to reuse parts from one kit to another, that is not really true. Auto builders can be just as nit picky as any ship or aircraft builder, they just tend to be more open to artistic license due to the popularity of custom cars so haven't acquired as much of a reputation for rivit counting. I have seen people just rip into auto kits for providing generic tires instead of tires marked with a brand, or complaining that a coupe has the roofline of the sedan the kit was based on. One of the changes made when Revell re-issued their '50 Ford Pickup was to redesign the heads on the motor, in the earlier version of the kit the shape of the heads was criticised for being inaccurate. A manufacturer would never get away with putting a Chevy motor in a Ford kit unless it was being sold as a custom car. Putting generic parts in a car kit would go over about as well as putting generic aircraft on an aircraft carrier kit.

Interesting discussion, I build a little bit of everything but I find it quite interesting to see how people focused on one particular part of modeling think and want they want from their kits.