In researching an immanent project I am finding that the plastic ship models currently available are not what they seem. And it certainly has me irritated.
What we need is a table of information so that we know what we are looking at when we see a nifty model on the store shelf.
For example.
It turns out that the Revell *Dom Fernando ii e Gloria* did not originate with Revell. It was originally produced by a defunct company named Occidental.
It has sence been released by Zvezda under the name *Acheron* after Russel Crowe's movie, "Master and Commander". Proof: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=73114
Lindberg’s Jolly Roger was originally released as the French frigate La Flore.
This thread suggests that Lindberg has done this with more than just this kit. The Wappen von Hamburg became Captain Kidd’s Adventure Galley. HMS Sovereign of the Seas became Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. The French 17th century man-of-war, the St. Louis became Sir Henry Morgan’s pirate ship.
Someone on another thread suggested that the current model Revell AG Germany 1/150 Frigate USS *United States Ship Model* Kit - 05406 is a repop of Revell's older USS *Constitution* in another scale or just another box.
Well? It’s a start. Does anyone else have anything more to share?
Modelnut, the truth of the matter, is that the companies that offer phoney modeling kits, think the modeling public is too stupid to know the difference.
montani semper liberi. Happy modeling to all and every one of you.
We should maybe mention the ones that are quite authentic and are the ships that are labeled on the box. Heller’s large scale Victory and the Soleil Royale come to mind. Heller also did a somewhat smaller Le Superbe (1:180 maybe) that was quite authentic.
Airfix has the HMS Endeavor, which looks reasonably accurate (haven’t started the build yet, but pics of the re-creation seem to match the kit pretty well. Of course, that means it is accurate to that recreation/replica- how accurate that matches the original I don’t know.
The sad truth, I’m afraid, is that the manufacturers regard sailing ships as a tiny, obscure corner of the plastic kit market and just regard it as a means of making money off people who don’t really know much about the subject. (The experts and knowledgeable critics who buy aircraft, armor, and modern warship kits don’t have much of a counterpart in the plastic sailing ship world - such as it is. If a company released a model airplane kit on the level of accuracy of the Heller Soleil Royal or the Revell Beagle, the criticisms would flood cyberspace and the magazines.) The only plastic model company that seems to have really taken the sailing ship seriously as a product for serious scale modelers was Imai, which went bust almost thirty years ago.
So many kits are sailing around with false identities out there that I, for one, can’t keep up with them. With the help of Dr. Thomas Graham’s book on the history of Revell, I could probably put together a list of the Revell USA sailing ship kits and the deceptive labels that have been put on them. (Revell USA didn’t actually issue many sailing ship kits - and issued its last one, the excellent Viking ship, more than thirty years ago.) But when we get beyond that, I fall off the bus. (Revell Germany, for instance, has released several sailing ship kits that, to my knowledge, have never turned up in US boxes. I actually saw the ancient Aurora Chinese junk kit in a Revell Germany box once.) The ancient Pyro kits have appeared under the banners of so many manufacturers, and under so many names, that one can get a headache just thinking about them. And Heller has pulled this stunt so many times that I can’t begin to sort all of its kits out.
I do want to put in a favorable plug for one manufacturer: Airfix. The relatively small line of Airfix sailing ships has always been close to the state of the art at the time of release. (Ok, the earlier ones don’t come up to today’s standards, but they’re not bad - and they look like the ships they’re supposed to represent.) The kits have consistently improved over the years. (The one exception I’m aware of: the Airfix Bounty, which was a step backward. It appeared at a time when the company’s financial problems were really serious.) And so far as I know, Airfix has never recycled a sailing ship kit by claiming it was something that it wasn’t. Now that the company has had some new life breathed into it, maybe - just maybe - we’ll see a new sailing ship kit from it. That I’d certainly welcome. Long live Airfix.
This is a well-recognized problem that has been much discussed on FSM. It is frustrating to say the least, but there are excellent sailing ship kits out there. The Revell USS Constitution kits and their Cutty Sark, Golden Hind, Viking Ship, HMS Bounty, Charles Morgan, and Wasa are excellent. The Airfix ships (Oh, how I have lobbied them fofr more sailing ships!) are nice. The Lindberg so-called “Pirate Ships” actually build into nice replicas of the real ships they originally portrayed. And, the Dom Fernado e. Gloria does resemble the real ship in Portugal, although the Spar Deck cannon should be replaced with carronades. Also, some of the Heller ships are quite good, but be careful there.
I have the Dom Fernando e. Gloria waiting in my stash. I meant to turn him into Hornblower’s Lydia but that won’t work. So I am soon buying the Lindberg Jolly Roger or La Floire since that model is more nearly a 32 gun frigate.
I have been looking around the web at all the finished ship models on display. [:|] My goodness but some of them are simply GORGEOUS! It is inspiring ship envy here in South Carolina. The trouble is I only have room in my house for so many models. I have to pick and choose. So I will definitely build my Lydia. And I am really liking the look of the Golden Hind — and she is in the Golden Scale of 1/72. As for the rest I may steal a few images for wallpapers for my computer.
