I have read many comments on the old Aurora kit and I still remember my desperation while recovering from a building collapse . I wanted that simple old kit and it just couldn’t be found .
In my room bounces my 10 year old son .( the Big Apple in my eye for sure ) . " Hey Dad ! I found your ship ! " says he . “Oh sure , How ?” says me .
He holds up a model of a wrecked ship that is part of an aquarium bubbler ! Sure enough it is , as I verified later with a fit test , the old " Black Falcon " !
How did I verify it with a fit test ? I found one of the originals , minus box , at a vendor at a model show and put it up next to this re-worked " Bubbler " . Sure enough even the stern board with the name on it was the exact same part . How ? I ripped the one off the bubbler and reinstalled the good one from the ship . Perfect match !
I guess I was really desperate for that old worn out horse . Well , to tell the truth I build about ten .Then created two lines of ships meeting in battle . Yes .I did cut them off at the waterline and had them "Leaning away from the wind ".
Most fun I ever had with model ships that resided in a Flat - Topped cabinet on top of a reproduction map of the Atlantic in a dining Room Glass topped table ! The Table itself was the flat-topped cabinet !
I still have a few around to bring me back to earth when I want to get crazy with sail ship models . T.B.
Philo , I wish I could , but the photos from back then are " Blowin in the Wind " 'In 1982 all this went Bye , Bye in a F-5 Tornado . Nothing remains except my boxed ships and an old scratched 58 Chevrolet model . T.B.
I was replying to another Comment about Aurora’s " Black Falcon . Years ago I had a lot of ships and models displayed around my home and supported by the models my daughters , wife and son built . All was destroyed in a tornado and most were not salvagable. Bye the way "Blowin in the Wind " was one of my favorites and still is . T.B. P.S. that’s why there no pictures also .That is a part of my life I cannot relive , nor do I really want to , except for the models .
What I was writing about was a situation I found myself in after an accident . I wanted to build a simple model of a sailing ship. I remembered the " Black Falcon " and even my LHS had never heard of it , when my Son found the bubbler
I knew this thing was still around . I was just glad they hadn’t ruined the molds .It’s a fun , Incorrect simple sailing ship that is by no means a correct , or really a " Scale ’ model . But it was and is still fun to build .
I am glad many can still relive their favorite " Pirate " movie with this kit .It’s fun . T.B.
Wow! “Chicken of the Sea” ship at Disneyland, what a memory. I always went there to have lunch and be ‘onboard’ a pirate ship. I also preferred riding on the Columbia over the Mark Twain paddle-wheel. Columbia was a reproduction of the Columbia Rediviva, the 1st US ship to circumnavigate the globe. “Be still my heart”.