A Few questions about Revell & Revell (of) Germany if I may.
First up, can you tell the difference between the two without opening the box? Is there something to look for?
Second is a bit more in depth. I know for many years now Revell’s reputation has sunk. I believe that Revell of Germany (RoG) has kept up with newer industry standards, and while maybe not on par with say tamiya’s reputation RoG is still decent quality, is this accurate?
Andrew
From what I can see, it looks like the two companies use differing graphics on their kits. All Revell Germany (aircraft & boats anyway) have a box / band (blue or grey) over the top & down the left hand side of the box, while Revell only seem to have the top band.
This is just what I see, not a definitive answer;
Andrew,
This is also not definitive, but look for Revell GmbH & Co. KG on the box (for Revell Europe kits).
I may be wrong, but I am going to take a stab at it and say that Revell® Inc appears on the Revell (US) boxes. (Can someone confirm/deny?)
They are two different companies that often share the same molds. Revell started RoG as a European distributor of their kits. Sometime along the way, it became its own company and started producing kits of its own and reboxing other European companies’ kits (like Italeri and Esci) while still releasing Revell (US) kits. Revell (US) eventually merged with Monogram to become Revell-Monogram (which then dropped the Monogram portion of the name).
Revell-Monogram even began to release some RoG kits in the 1990s. RoG gained the Matchbox label and molds and began a line of 1/72 scale armor kits to compliment the old Matchbox armor line. Some of these new RoG armor kits showed up on US shelves in Monogram boxes (M4A1 Sherman, StuG IV, T-80, Leopard 2A4) and in European shelves in Matchbox boxes.
Some old Renwal kits that Revell (US) owned showed up in Matchbox boxes in Europe as well. A couple of 1950s era Monogram kits showed up in Revell boxes (M34 Tactical Truck and Willys Jeep) recently.
Today it is difficult to tell what’s in a RoG box. It could be old Revell, Renwal, Monogram, Italeri, Esci, Matchbox, AFV Club, AMT/Ertl, Dragon, Hasegawa and probably a few I have missed (like some of the Eastern European companies). I can give specific examples of each one of these manufacturers showing up in Revell of Germany boxes.
Thanks all. As always Rob you are a library of information. So looks like (and it seems more common than I thought with other companies as well), any purchase is a lucky dip without checking out a review first. Will be interesting come christmas day cause I saw mrs claws [whstl] with a couple of revell box’s at the hobby shop today.
Andrew
The packaging is the clue as to who is producing/packaging the kit. RoG kits as illustrated in the images above have those blue lines across the cover. Also RoG loves to package in end flap type boxes (cheaper to produce) not shoebox style that Revell produced kits typically have.
I believe more is coming out of RoG because they seem to have sufficient cashflow to produce new and reissued kits. Revell (which acquired Monogram) is now owned by Hobbico and seem to be focusing their energy on their primary product line, R/C.
The cost to tool a new kits is very costly. So many manufacturers have set up interactions to share molds. It is effective, most consumers (modelers) are not aware that one company is just repopping a kit produced by someone else earlier. As they say you can’t judge a book by the cover, you can’t do it with plastic models either…you got to peek inside.
This week she’s a red head, next month a blond, its all about cosmetics and packaging, but inside it is the same ole gal…err plastic model.
From what can tell aside from the box type, Revell Germany’s kits have a German website address printed on the side panel…
I won’t get into a leg-lifting contest about Revell kit quality except to say that I’ll put my 12.00 Revellogram builds on the table against anyone’s 60.00 Tamigawa/Trumpeduard builds…
I still believe (other than pricing) that Trumpeter is the Revell/Monogram of this decade. They are releasing kits of the same subjects (as well as a few different ones) as R/M did in the 80’s and 90’s. Their quality and fit is about the same.
Though the latest Trumpeter 1:32 F-14 and F-18 seem to be more like Hasegawa in detail, not sure about the fit and engineering as I haven’t started building either yet. Revell of Germany’s started to shake the trend when they released the Hawker Hunter, a kit I’ve always wanted to build after seeing and reading about it.
For those who assemble, they find it preferrable to spend the extra cash for a better engineered kit such as those from Tamiya, but a good old school modeler will still take on the challenge of making a silk purse from a sows ear. I’ve seen those old junk kits beat out higher end works of engineering art many a time. It still boils down to the modeler, not the model itself.
Truer words were never spoken Hawk… Like the guy who wants a muscle car and buys it, rather than building it… Kits like the old Monogram ones from the early 60s are among my favorites to build, especially the ones with the mummified “pilot” figure glued to a piece of armor plate which in turn is glued to the fuselage half, like their Spitfire IX, Me-109E, F4U-4, F4F, F6F, etc… Back in the day, they ran at about 1.50 and were rushed home, slapped together with Testor’s tube glue, and promptly blown up with a firecracker, lol… Then you run back up to the Five & Dime (or grocery store in my case) and buy another one, only to blow it up as well… The .39-cent HAWK 1/72 kits faired even worse, lol…
When I became a “serious” modeler at about age 13-14, that’s when I got into scratchbuilding the details that were missing. There were no resin parts-kits (or VERY few) and PE parts were unheard of… I’ve got several of these old gals on the bench in various stages right now, namely the TBF, Wildcat, and Lindberg’s P-6E & PT-17…
I started a build-log for the Monogram TBF in here back in July 08 IIRC… Detailing the cockpits, rear crew compartment, vac-forming a new canopy & cowl and casting a new engine were some of things being done with it…
Hmmm… I really need to finish that thing…
I don’t have a lot of either, but what I do have, the RoG kits seem to be good kits for the price. The RoG F-22 Raptor I’m doing right now is loaded with detail and I paid less than $25 for it.
Again thanks to all for the input here, and really does give me alot to think about, I guess part of me wants to drive that ferrari, to at least know the difference, then I hope to be able to stop worring about kit brands and worry about subject matter and make up the difference with scratch and AM parts.
Andrew
An interesting note here: I got to looking at the boxes for my F-22 Raptor (RoG) and it is marked with the European Revell trademarks-printed in Germany-kit made in Poland! I also have a F101B Voodoo from 1991 that has the exact same box style as the rest of the RoG kits. However, the trademark is of Revell, USA. Printed in Germany, kit made in Korea! So you really don’t know what you’re getting!
By the way, that F-101 looks kind of interesting…
Revell (US) does not rely only on re-issues of old kits, they have just put their their recent efforts into car models with the 2006 Mustang, 2008 Challenger, 2010 Camaro, 1932 Ford (multiple versions), 1949 Mercury, 1957 Chevy “Black Widow” and 1969 Chevy Nova (SS & Yenko) while RoG has been tooling more diverse subjects including aircraft, submarines, armor and cars.
This may have something to do with the US market, as all of the US model companies seem to have been following this trend since the 1990s. All of the more recent tools from AMT, Revell and Lindberg have been cars, although recently Lindberg does seem to be branching out more than the other two. It is also possible that they are doing this because their staples (US autos) are not being done by others. Perhaps a bit of why make another Me 109 when it will have to compete with every other company out there. With a few exceptions the overseas companies Tamiya, Hasgawa, RoG, Italeri etc have not done these subjects.
While I know Lindberg had a rather unfortunate stumble with the Japanese sub (and to me the silver lining is at least it sounds like the sub has excellent fit of parts, which is an improvement over the poor fitting and inaccurate Lindberg ships of the past [whstl] ), but the more recent car models from Revell, AMT and Lindberg show they can make a kit as good as anyone, it is just a matter of convincing them to do more than cars.
It’s easy to tell the difference.
When you pick up a Revell Germany kit it says, “Put me down dummkopf!” 
OK, I will go back to the bench now. [:#]