Hi, all!
Is there just one HMS Victory model by Revell, or was there a smaller one? I think, there is just one, but why does Revell show 1/146 for their model, while this model was sold, some years ago, as a 1/225 scale model?
I show you three boxarts :
the first one, with no scale shown
a newer one, with a grey box, 1/225 scale shown
one of the latest, the “Trafalgar 200” gift box, 1/146 scale shown.
Thank you.
Michel
I saw another in the LHS yesterday. It was the Victory in the standard Revell blue/green box. IIRC it was labeled 1:150 scale. That may be close enough to your 1:146 scale kit that they rounded the number.
I bought the one of the 1:225 kits about 13 years ago during a trip to the UK. It was by Revell. I have never seen it on this side of the pond
This is interesting. It’s pretty clear that the first and third of Michel’s photos show the same kit in different boxes. I’m not sure what the one in the middle is.
The bible on the subject, Thomas Graham’s Remembering Revell Model Kits, lists only one H.M.S. Victory. It was originally released in 1959, in the box that’s in the uppermost of Michel’s photos. (The box art is unmistakeable. The artist showed the sails secured to the footropes rather than the yards - pretty funny, if you think about it a little.) The original kit number was H-363. Dr. Graham says it was on the market under that number from 1959 through 1970. He only lists one reissue: in 1972, with the same kit number. (The book only covers the period through 1979, however, and only covers the products of Revell of the U.S. - not Revell Germany.)
I think the Revell kit got pirated by other companies at least twice. (I say “pirated” without any real knowledge of what was going on. There may have been some perfectly legal arrangement - though I rather doubt it.) Some Japanese firm apparently developed a set of molds that were somewhat crude copies of the Revell ones; that kit was sold for a while in the U.S. under the UPC label. (I assume it had some other label in Japan. UPC, to my knowledge, didn’t actually make models; it reboxed other companies’ merchandise for U.S. distribution.) And, as we discussed in another thread recently, there was the odd Lindberg Victory. I only have vague memories of it, but it looked suspiciously like a “pantographed-down” version of the Revell one. Many of the details looked remarkably similar - the whole kit was considerably smaller. (Lindberg did at least two other kits that appeared to be shrunken Revell ones: a Bounty and a Flying Cloud. The latter even had the little coils of rope molded into the decks in the same positions as the Revell kit had them.) The freakish thing about that little Lindberg Victory, though, had to do with its transom and quarter galleries. I’m writing this on the basis of thirty- or forty-year-old memory, which may well be defective, but I’m pretty clear in my recollection that the kit only had two rows of stern windows. I recall that because I recall trying to make the kit into a waterline version of a 74-gun ship, by chopping off the lower deck and leaving the stern as-is.
I can suggest three explanations regarding the middle photo in Michel’s post. One - Revell Germany has actually issued a Victory kit that’s different from all the others that have appeared under the Revell label. (That’s certainly possible.) Two - it’s actually the same kit as the one in the other two boxes. Three - that old Lindberg kit has somehow made its way into the Revell fold. That seems like the least likely explanation, but it would be worth taking a look at the box contents. If the thing has two rows of stern windows…
Actually Theory #2 makes a lot of sense. The people running these companies are notoriously casual in their approach to scale. The Revell catalog over the years has contained plenty of ridiculous errors regarding scale. I don’t have the kit in front of me to measure, but that figure 1/146 (or 1/150) almost has to be wrong. In those days Revell was making its sailing ships to fit a standard-sized box. The original Constitution and Victory kits were packed in identically-sized boxes, and the finished models were almost exactly the same size (about 18"long). Dr. Graham’s book lists the Constitution as being on 1/192 scale. That makes sense. (1/192, or 1/16"=1’, is a standard scale. The Constitution was the first sailing ship kit Revell made; it seems reasonable that the standard box size might have been initially that way. And an 18"-long model of the Constitution would indeed be on about 1/192 scale - half the size of Revell’s 36" kit, which is on 1/96 scale.) There’s no way a model of the Victory can be on a LARGER scale than a Constitution of the same length. (1/225 seems a little small - but it’s entirely possible that both are mis-labelings of the same kit. I think the errors, whatever they may have been, may have crept in when somebody saw a figure in book for the “overall” length of the ship and assumed that the figure in question included the bowsprit - which it almost certainly didn’t.)
Most interesting stuff. I guess the only way to resolve the mystery is to get hold of the actual kits and compare the contents of the boxes.
Thank you Ed, I am really interested in the boxart of this model, so please, if you can, send (or show) me a picture.
John, I could also see a model by Entex (1/400 scale) :
http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/Entex-En.htm
Maybe more interesting, a French modeler writes, that he has a set of 1/96 scale plans by George F.Campbell.
George F.Campbell draw the illustrations and plans in C.Nepean Longridge’s book, Anatomy of Nelson’s ships. The only reference I have for the plans is :
Percival Marshall and c° Ltd.
19-20 Noel St.
London w1
G.F. Campbell inv.del.
Unfortunately, I found nothing more than the above informations about the plans, and I am not sure, Percival Marshall and Co are still around.
Michel
You know, I thought the Revell 1/146 was actually 1/2xx and probably 1/220 or so. Perhaps Revell actually scaled the kit correctly in one packaging. I suppose they went back to 1/146 for marketing. Bigger is better. Heller has all those 1/150 and 1/200. 1/146 sure sounds larger than 1/225.
To Michael, Do you want me to email you kit contents of the 1/146 Revell victory with hull dimensions? Imperial or Metric?
Regards,
FC
nb: 1/225 goes well with Revell’s Olympia and Ward, Glencoe’s Oregon, and Heller had a 1/225 Bireme out as well. I thought Revell’s 1/196 Constitution is actually closer to 1/230 or so. Also I have a Constructo Numancia in 1/219.2x Cannot think of any other 1/225 or near scale.
I think these are all from the same molds. The gun deck on the ‘1/146’ kit measures out at a little over 10". With a gun deck of 186 feet, this works out to be ~1/220th.
[;)]Thank you,
Celestino, I have pictures and I asked Xander898 to put a rule on the picture of the Revell model :
http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/RevellXander898/index.html
Well, I think, the “1/225” model is another one, reboxed from another manufacturer, see the first boxart and the new one, they show the same model ; the 1/225 is different. In their “1/146” scale model, there are just some gunports open, on the 1/225 boxart they all are closed, sails are different too. But, maybe in some days, I’ll have one of the “1/225” models, so I’ll be able to compare them.
Anyways, if you know a different boxart or a model not shown on my website, please let me know, so we can “build” some information for the future “HMS Victory modelers”.
http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/MODELS_EN.htm
Michel
This plot is getting thicker. I’m inclined to think Schoonerbum is right: all the kits in Revell boxes are the same, and the “1/146” and “1/150” scale labels on some of them are wrong. But the only way to clear up the mystery completely would be to look in the boxes.
As the photos from Xander898 remind us, it’s a remarkably nice kit for its size and age. (Bear in mind that it appeared at a time when manufacturers were adorning their aircraft kits with “rivets” the size of scale watermelons.) Take a look at the hull planking, which shows the “anchor stock” pattern on the wales more accurately than most of those hideously-expensive wood kits. (I imagine Calder/Jotika got it right; I’m pretty sure none of the Italian or Spanish companies bothered to try.) Xander898’s sample, unfortunately, has the same problem mine does. Apparently the mold for the starboard hull half had been damaged. Compare the steps leading up to the entry port on that side with those on the other half.
That Entex kit appears to be the one I bought in a Lindberg box. The photo on the Entex box shows the stern galleries with the missing “layer.” That doesn’t seem like the kind of mistake two independent designers would make.
Most interesting stuff. The world of plastic sailing ship kits is indeed a bizarre one.
Regarding plans of the Victory - I’m pretty sure the ones by George Campbell (referred to in Michel’s recent post) are the ones I bought, via Model Shipways, about thirty years ago. They’re blueprint versions of the plans Mr. Campbell drew for Longridge’s Anatomy of Nelson’s Ships. The foldout prints in the book are, if I remember correctly, 50% reductions from the blueprint versions. If you’ve got the Longridge book you don’t need the Campbell/Percival Marshall plans - unless you just want bigger versions of what you already have. And the book contains those marvelous perspective drawings (the one showing the maintop is downright awe-inspiring) and detail views.
Lots of good plans for this ship have been published over the years. Ironically the primary source drawings, in the form of the “Admiralty Drafts” in the National Maritime Museum, aren’t of great use to modelers; they don’t have the sort of detail that’s so often found in plans from that source. But the subject has attracted several extremely competent 20th-century draftsmen.
The first may have been Basil Lavis, whose set of Victory drawings was published, I think, sometime in the 1920s, when the ship was being restored for public exhibition. They’re entirely competent drawings, though they don’t contain the sort of detail the later ones do. (I suspect the Lavis drawings are the ones Longridge used to build his model. I think his publisher commissioned the Campbell plans after the model was finished.)
The restoration of the ship was supervised by the Society for Nautical Research, which commissioned a fine historian named R.W. Bugler to do research in the primary source documents. In 1966 (at least that’s the date on the copy I’ve seen; the first edition may be older) Bugler himself published a book called H.M.S. Victory: Building, Restoration, and Repair. It’s a big, bulky tome with a set of drawings folded into a pocket inside the back cover. I haven’t seen a copy of it in years, but my recollection is that the drawings were excellent - though not as detailed as the ones by Campbell and McKay.
I like the Campbell drawings; they’re fine examples of the drafting art, and I’ve never encountered any major criticism of them in terms of accuracy. (Here we should make the usual caveats: those drawings show the entry ports, knee-high forecastle bulwarks, and various other features that may or may not be correct for the ship’s 1805 configuration. But I’m unaware of any set of plans that doesn’t have that problem.) They’re particularly useful to modelers when used in conjunction with the text in the Longridge book. The combination of those drawings with Longridges’ verbal descriptions should, for example, provide the modeler with everything he or she needs to know in order to rig a model of the Victory.
The drawings in the Conway/Naval Institute Press Anatomy of the Ship volume, by John McKay, are superb. (I’ve done enough ship drawings myself to know that this man is an absolute master of the form. I’m not worthy to sharpen his pencils.) Here, though, the modeler needs to be careful. The first edition of that book drew some heat from reviewers because Mr. McKay included some decidedly non-original details, based on the ship’s current state. (For example, he showed the wales as layers of thin planking fastened to the exterior of the hull planking. That arrangement is an example of modern economizing. The original wales were huge timbers fastened directly to the ship’s frames.) Mr. McKay (all credit to him - and Conway - for their integrity) later published a revised edition of the book in which those errors were corrected. The modeler would be well advised to seek out the revised edition.
I read one criticism of the Anatomy volume to the effect that it was deficient in lacking a body plan. The critic should have looked closer and thought a little before he made that comment. True, there’s no single drawing in the book labeled “body plan,” but it does contain a series of remarkably detailed cross-sections that convey the same information - and much more besides.
Then there’s H.M.S. Victory: Her Construction, Career, and Restoration, by Alan McGowan and John McKay. This is a terrific book, combining attractive, “coffee-table” appearance with a great deal of fine scholarship. The last section of it contains over a hundred drawings by Mr. McKay. At first glance they look like the same ones that appear in the Anatomy of the Ship volume, and some of them are. But for this book Mr. McKay prepared quite a few additional drawings, most of them dealing with the rigging. Both books are worth acquiring. For the modeler starting with a kit who can only afford one of them, though, I think I’d recommend the later, McGowan/McKay volume. It contains more information about the rigging, which is the area where the modeler working from a kit is likely to need the most help.
[Safari doesn’t the quoting right] It would be interesting to knwo whether Airfix its scale 1:180 Victory is the same than then Revell its one. I saw the Airfix kit in model shop and the assembled ship measures about the same length as the assembled Revell “Victory”. Btw: the site from Belgium is cool and I enjoy it! Katzennahrung
I don’t know what’s in all those boxes, but we shouldn’t base any judgments on box art - unless the art in question is a photo of a finished model. The artists who do the paintings for model boxes frequently don’t have finished models to look at; they work from photos and/or other paintings of the real thing. Whether a boxtop painting shows gunport lids open or closed, for instance, isn’t really any indication of how the model inside is made.
I do know for a fact that the Revell and Airfix versions of the Victory are completely different kits. The Airfix one is several inches larger - and about a decade younger. (It was originally issued, I believe, in the late sixties.) There are some other significant differences between the two kits. Most of Revell’s gunports are molded shut; Airfix provides the option of having all of them open. On the other hand, Airfix only provides full-length barrels and carriages for the guns on the upper deck. On the middle and lower decks, the gunports are represented by recessed squares with round holes in their middles. If you want the ports shut, you glue the lids into the recesses; if you want them open, the kit provides “dummy” gun barrels - stubs with pegs on their ends that plug into the round holes. Pretty phoney looking. Revell doesn’t provide a full complement of guns, but the ones it does provide have full-length barrels - and the Revell gunports that are open are genuine holes in the ship’s sides.
The Airfix kit has the advantage that, being on a slightly larger scale, it’s easier to detail and rig. And most of the detail on it is pretty nice. (The figurehead is better than Revell’s.) But in general I actually like the Revell one a little better. It has that outstanding hull planking detail, and the detail in general is a little more subtle. The decisive factor to me, though, is that the Airfix kit suffers from a big error in basic shape: the bow is distorted. The mistake is hard to describe, but instantly obvious if you compare the kit to a drawing or photo of the real thing. The whole head structure sort of “sags,” so the figurehead sits almost a full deck too low. All the components of the bow are distorted to match. It would be difficult to fix.
“jtilley” wrote: == I do know for a fact that the Revell and Airfix versions of the Victory are completely different kits. The Airfix one is several inches larger - and about a decade younger. == Are you sure on this jtilley? The Airfix and Revell kits share a similar overall length, at least according to the following links: Overall length of the Airfix Victory at scale 1:180 of 383mm (about 17.5"): http://www.moduni.de/product_info.php/cPath/10000000_10400000_10403001_10403040/products_id/1509252 Overall length of the Victory from Revell at scale 1:144 of 400mm (about 18"): http://www.moduni.de/product_info.php/cPath/10000000_10400000_10403001_10403040/products_id/1509252 However, the Airfix kit includes 350 parts whereas the Revell kit includes 260 parts. Regards, Katzennharung
I am absolutely, 100% certain of few things in this life - but this is one of them. When I was considerably younger I built both kits several times. The Airfix and Revell Victory kits are completely different products, and the Airfix one is bigger.
Those scale figures and dimensions quoted on the boxes and websites appear to be (to use a term we Americans frequently employ to avoid censorship by the Webmaster) baloney. To establish their actual scales I’d have to get samples of the two kits and compare them to a set of plans, but the Airfix kit is definitely larger.
There’s one possible factor that may have caused some of the confusion. A few years ago Heller functioned for a while as a European distributor for Revell kits, and of course Heller and Airfix are now under the same management. I’ve seen several Revell sailing ship kits in Heller boxes. It’s conceivable that, somewhere along the line, both the Revell and Airfix Victory kits got sold in Heller boxes. (The big 1/00 kit that we all know and love as the Heller Victory is currently being sold under the Airfix label.) It’s certainly possible that, amid all that confusion, somebody made an honest mistake and mixed up the scales and dimensions of the two kits. But the most likely explanation, I think, is sheer sloppiness on the part of the people who wrote the material on the boxes (and websites.)
The unfortunate moral to this sad story is that the sailing ship model kit industry operates according to a completely different set of rules (or lack thereof) than any other phase of the modeling world. It’s interesting to speculate on what would happen if a kit manufacturer took such a casual approach to scale - and historical accuracy - in its aircraft or railroad kits.
michel.vrtg" wrote:
According to the following ebay link (in German):
there was indeed a smaller Victory in overall length size: at scale 1/225 the overall length is about 236mm (9.5") and the height measures to 198mm (8").
Even if Revell put some over- or underestimations on to the kit box. The numbers are noticeably smaller than the ones given for scale 1/146.
Regards,
Katzennahrung
I can’t get the link in Katzennahrung’s last post to work. (The problem may lie with my computer, but the link in the post doesn’t show up in color - like functioning links do.)
In any case, the biggest lesson to emerge from this interesting thread is that the scale figures and dimensions quoted on kit boxes, in catalogs, and on E-bay are utterly unreliable. (Frankly I don’t bother to pay attention to them any more.) It’s entirely possible that more than one Victory kit has been sold at one time or another in a box with the Revell name on it. But the only way to figure out the whole story is to look at the box contents. If that E-bay page has any photos of the actual model on it, I might be able to tell whether it’s one of the kits I’ve seen. If all that appears on E-bay is a picture of a boxtop painting, though, my inclination would be to ignore it.
On my Macintosh “Safari” doesn’t show the link either. However, you can “copy and paste” the following into your browser header (note possible line delimiters): http://cgi.ebay.at/REVELL-Modellschiff-H-M-S-Victory-ansehen_W0QQitemZ7381327953QQcategoryZ100019QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Or you can go directly to ebay and visiting the following product number: 7381327953 Regards, Katzennahrung
“Katzennahrung” wrote: == http://cgi.ebay.at/REVELL-Modellschiff-H-M-S-Victory-ansehen_W0QQitemZ7381327953QQcategoryZ100019QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Or you can go directly to ebay and visiting the following product number: 7381327953 Note: the ebay seller made a typo in the following lines: == Angaben zum Modell Maßstab 1:130 Länge 236 mm Höhe 198 mm == He had a typo at the “scale figure”. However, he cleary advertizes it as a ship at scale 1:225: == Revell - Nr. 1/225 Platik -Modellbausatz,noch nicht zusammengebaut… == He also states that the Revell box has an imprint “1985” on the kit box and he assumes the kit comes from such about times. Regards, Katzennahrung
That e-bay photo is pretty blurry, but it’s interesting. The box, of course, is the second one Michel showed us in his original post back on January 8. The basic parts breakdown seems to match the old, 1959 Revell kit. But in some respects the kit in the picture looks like the old Lindberg one. (Those two observations aren’t inconsistent. The Lindberg kit, remember, was in most respects a “pantographed-down” version of the Revell one.)
The most conspicuous difference from the 1959 Revell kit is the stand. The old Revell kit came with one of Revell’s standard sailing ship stands; it was shaped like a T. (The model’s keel fit into a single upright piece near the stern, and two upright pieces supported the bow. I believe some of the stands in Revell kits got modified in re-releases. Originally each stand was molded in one piece; in some reissues the uprights were separate pieces. The one in Xander’s photos, to which Michel linked us, has the separate uprights. They’re visible in one of the pictures.) The kit in the e-bay photo seems to have a three-piece stand shaped like a cradle, with X-shaped forward and after components and a third piece connecting them.
I don’t remember what the stand in the Lindberg kit looked like. The photo of the completed Entex model (which I think is identical to the Lindberg one - but maybe not) to which Michel linked us earlier has a one-piece stand with four uprights.
The e-bay photo is too blurry for me to make out what I’m specifically looking for: the configuration of the quarter galleries and transom. If they’re missing one row of windows, this is probably the old Lindberg kit. Maybe somebody with a better monitor can tell.
I guess the only way to lay this one to rest once and for all is for one of us to buy that e-bay kit. But that individual isn’t going to be me.
In the grand scheme of world events this is all pretty trivial, but it sure is interesting. The behavior of plastic model manufacturers is really strange. I suspect the skilled, conscientious artisans who made the masters for the original Revell kit, back in the fifties, are turning in their graves.
“jtilley” wrote: == The most conspicuous difference from the 1959 Revell kit is the stand. == Interestingly enough. I got my two kits from ebay yesterday: Heller “Le Glorieux” (870 parts) and Heller “Maxflower” ($30 for boths kits). It was really a good deal and I would likely succeed if I am going to sell it on ebay with some margings (regular prices in model shops $110 for both kits). But I am not. However, the Mayflower kit is quite different from all the other Heller kits so far. The are two obvious differences: the shrouds are pre-assembled from plastic (as we know from Revell kits) and the stand looks similar to the one of my revell “Constitution”. Heller typically features a different stand and stand-base. And Heller is also know for not applying pre-assembled shrouds. Heller’s rigging is simple, though. I would really like to know whom I will have to give credit for the kit in the Heller box. Any ideas? The assembled ship will measure around 49cm (19 3/4"). It has only slightly more than 100 parts, though, detailings are not that bad in the kit.
Katzennahrung - There are two possibilities here. I’m pretty sure the kit originated with either Airfix or Revell. My guess is the latter, but I’m not 100 percent sure.
There was a period some years ago when Heller functioned as a distributor for Revell kits in some parts of Europe. Some Heller boxes with Revell kits inside in fact showed up in the U.S. (And, as Michel has established, some Revell kits, with modifications, are still being sold under the Heller label.) I’m pretty sure I recall seeing a Revell Mayflower in a Heller box. But Airfix makes a Mayflower as well - and, of course, Heller and Airfix are now owned by the same people. (Actually I think I read something in one of the magazines recently to the effect that Heller had been bought by somebody else. At any rate, though, for the past several years Heller and Airfix have been joined at the hip.)
The fact that your kit has that T-shaped stand suggests pretty strongly that it’s Revell in origin. (Most of the Airfix sailing ship kits I’ve seen have had cruciform stands.) If you’ll post a picture I can probably tell for sure.
The question actually is a little more complex, because Revell actually made two Mayflower kits. It sounds like you have the first, smaller one. (I’m assuming your figure for the length of the finished model includes the bowsprit. I’m pretty sure the second kit was a bit bigger than that.) The second Revell Mayflower originally appeared in the “quick-build” series of intermediate-sized kits that the company marketed to beginners. Actually it was a direct, enlarged copy of the original kit; I’m pretty sure the only difference other than size was that the “simplified” version omitted the rigging blocks. (We talked this out in another Forum thread some months back. One of the other members had both kits, and confirmed the differences between them.)
If you do have one of the Revell Mayflower kits - either of them - you’re in luck. In my opinion they’re among the best plastic sailing ship kits ever. They are in fact scale models of the replica Mayflower II, which crossed the Atlantic back in the fifties and has been on public exhibition at Plymouth, Massachusetts ever since. She was designed by William A. Baker, a professor of naval architecture at MIT and one of the most knowledgeable experts of the day. He did make one major compromise in his design: for the convenience of modern visitors he gave the ship several extra inches of headroom between decks. But the Mayflower II is stil regarded as an excellent piece of scholarship, and Revell did a superb job of reproducing her. Take a look at such things as the planking detail on the hull and you’ll see what I mean. Throw the preformed “ratlines” and “sails” in the wastebasket and you’ll have the basis for an outstanding scale model.