Let me introduce myself. I was Born about the same time as a famous (Back Then) T.V.show. It came on Saturday Night. The show had a theme that some remember even today. If you were lucky you had a 17" T.V. to watch it on. Remember those? flat on top and bottom and rounded on the sides.
Anyway, I was first seen in the then popular Local Hobby Shops. I came in a very attractive box with Box top artwork done by an artist whose name rhymes with Peel. He did a lot of art for this company. Now in some Boxes there four of us and some five.
We were a series too. Never mind that we were Not the same scale. That didn’t matter. Some were big, some little and some right in between. We were also sold in Box Scale individual boxes. Again with Gorgeous artwork on top.
Needless to say we were sold to kids hungry for models of the ships seen on this program mentioned earlier. Many of us have been “Repopped” many times in individual units. We still had rails that looked liike walls at the deck edges that the instructions said to paint silver. Since when did Warships have silver rails?
Many of us had flattened bottoms. Some actually had props and rudders too. Not many , but there were some. Some had raised weld lines. Most didn’t. I bet many of you had lots of fun hours putting us together. Twisting the parts off the sprue and gluing us togother with that aweful stringy tube glue that was the norm then.
Then there were some larger scale cousins that came right near the end years of that T.V.Show. We Three were Much better detailed than our cousins. We were bigger, with weld lines all over the place. We also had out of scale stanchions on which you used thread to create our rails. If you did it according to the instructions it looked like shallow steps running the length of the ship.
Now if you know us then please enlighten the reader. This Dumb Old Phart didn’t identify us. Can You? Oh, also see if you remember who the Box Art creator was. And the manufacturer of our line was. Bye!
Geeez Doc, Ya have me goin’ on this memory. Basd on the right time frame for you, I could not recall any " 4 models in a box" that required you to chisel out a shape from stone…, but I jest…
First thing I thought of was Tug Boat Annie and Lindbergs Waterfront Four. But then you gave that “Peel” clue which Bill caught on to. So, I figure you watched Victory At Sea. Pretty sure they had advertisements for Revell’s (pronounced (Rev-L"), Model ship set called by the same name. I only recall 3 kits in that box though. Perhaps you are referring to another one of the Gift sets. One set was called the Admirals set and it had 4 kits. So, was that the Show?
Do you remember holding on to the rabbit-ears to help get a better picture? My grandfather had the bigger screen tv so we watched his set when visiting and when he said “Don’t move” you held that Antenna still and simply angled your head over the TV to watch the show. I was an obedient 6yr old in '58.
You were lucky. My brothers would send me out on the roof to adjust the antenna and hold it in place for a while. That was either to make sure it wasn’t going to move again or until their show was over. We would also get ghost images when a aircraft went overhead on its way to Newark Airport. One time I saw a tanker leading a flight of fighters go by while I was on the roof.
Kids these days probably can’t comprehend what it was like onlyh having three stations, sometimes a fourth depending on the weather, only B/W pictures, and no remote channel selectors.
That’s why Granpa had me sit so close to the T.V.! Victory at Sea. To my knowledge there were four levels and yes, the “Admiral’s” did have four. There were also, according to what I’ve dug up over the years four series. Leastwise that is what I have discovered.
Did you tumble to which ships were the large ones? Clue-They were all “Greyhounds”
