I am thinking of buying this 1960 Revell model of the U.S. Navy hospital ship Repose. According to the eBay dealer, it’s an apparently rare, reissued/renamed version of Revell’s 1955 Haven.
In my teens, when I was 16 or 17, I built the model of the Haven, unaware that less than a decade later I would be surgical patient on Repose, sister ship of the Haven, after I was seriously wounded in Operation Utah in Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam.
I don’t remember having any issues with the model of the Haven, but I was a very uncritical model builder then, unaware that much great realism was possible. Now I’m concerned that the model of the Repose will be so clunky that it won’t come close to being a satisfying build. I’ve tried to find build reviews, without success. Perhaps a FineScale discussion board builder has had some experience with this model.
It won’t be cheap. The U.S. dollar cost is $65, and postage to Canada will probably be high; the dealer had to ask me where Vancouver was, and said he would check the mailing cost tomorrow. He apparently doesn’t normally ship to countries other than the U.S.
Your comments and suggestion will be most welcome.
Oh, considering your personal connection, you should buy it. I remember some years back our member Fred (Onyxman) backdated one into it’s original C4 cargo ship.
It has a flat bottom and it’s box scale, somewhere around 1/480.
Gold Medal Models makes a great PE set for a group of those kits, including things you’d need specific to the Haven/ Repose/ Hope kits.
I can’t comment on the price, but these things aren’t easy to find. I hope the postage is reasonable.
I’d be prepared for issues with the decals, but the kit on eBay looks clean, sealed and well taken care of.
I’ve never built this one, but I have built the other models from that group like the T2 tanker, the Hawaiian Pilot and the Montrose APA. They are nice, detailed, old fashiony kits.
Using PE on these will involve cutting off a lot of plastic railing. I am just finishing my 1955 vintage Midway.
With your history, I don’t see how you can not buy this kit, even it were the worst kit ever produced.
Personally, when I stumble across a kit that brings back a memory from builiding as a kid, my credit card tends to come out long before my brain engages. I’ve not regretted a purchase yet.
I also don’t think it matters if you were to build it or not. Display it in a the box somewhere you can see it often. Or build it if you want. The ‘memory’ kits I’ve bought bring me joy everytime I look at them sitting in my small stash. Might build them someday, might not.
There’s a little bit about the Haven/Repose on this compilation of older ship kit reviews. It is definitely going to be clunky by today’s standards; the kit is over 60 years old now! Given your personal connection, you should get it and build it anyway.
However, before going for a high-priced item on eBay, you should be open-minded about substitutes. Since 1954, that same set of moldings has been released by Revell as as USS Haven (in 1954), USS Repose (1960), SS HOPE (1961 and USS Repose (1967) - all the same set of moldings. (The HOPE kit was a civilian charter, so it doesn’t have the decals for the green stripes and red crosses.) Also, you may find it packaged by AHM or possibly Advent in the US, or Lodella (Mexican Revell) or Brazillian Revell, the proper name of which escapes me. In my experience, the plastic of the earlier release was more brittle, but your mileage may vary. I hate to screw up somebody’s sale, but $65 seems exhorbitant for that kit. I’d be happy to pull one out of the stash and give it to you for a more reasonable price, but as you say, postage from the US can be a bear.
Build-wise, just besides the kit’s age, the biggest considerations are that it has the molded-in railings and flat bottom that were characteristic of 1950’s Revell ships.
Even if you don’t get carried away with surgery (no pun intended, but I like it) and photo-etch, you can fix the model up nicely with a paintbrush. Just look at the various bumps and lumps on the decks and paint them the way they should appear, rather than vanilla like the instructions.
This is a great opportunity to build a model of something that has real meaning for you. Guess I need to get hot and start building kits of the ships I served on, to take my own medicine. Enjoy!
Bob, ouch on the $65 not including shipping as i think you can find a better deal then that & i live east of you in Ontario. right now i have 2 those Haven class kits being built but not out of the box. the reason i say that is the decks make the hull wider then the lower half of the hull. the hull bottom is correct shape except for missing keel bulges but the hull sides are supposed to be vertical not sloped away from the decks which means all new decks. cutoff all the railings as should not see them at that scale.
IF it fits your need (and it sounds like it), the time is right (for you), the thing is nibbling away in your mind to “build me, build me”. Then whats stopping you? Yes, you can wait for the “get a better price” in some indetermanit time in the future. But do you want to?, if not, go get it. Besides if you find another model of the ship and it less expencive you can get that one too. Then you can have fun rebuilding it into a better version ----Fun Awaits. [;)]
And they list the kit (as SS Hope) as in production as recently as 2008, so I’d not spend extra for the box art (which often drives the collector’s market).
The USS Haven kits appear to all have crosses and green stripes, which are essential parts of USN hospital ship markings
Thanks to everyone who has responded to my original post. I’ve learned more about these Haven-class models than I knew I needed to know! I decided to order the S.S. Hope kit from the seller in North Vancouver, but there’s a hitch: the listing says he may not ship to Canada, even though he lives only a long stone’s throw away from me. OK, a VERY LONG stone’s throw, across Coal Harbour, but if just one smallish apartment building weren’t in the way, I could see North Vancouver from my living room. When I tried to buy it anyway, eBay.com informed me that it wasn’t available to me because I live in Canada! I’ve written him to express my interest.
Until I joined FineScale.com, I wasn’t aware so many iterations exist of many models. I wasn’t aware of S.S. Hope at all. The decals shouldn’t pose a problem; I’ve been designing and printing my own, and as GMorrison wrote, the crosses and green stripes could be painted.
I’ll let you know what happens regarding the eBay Hope kit in question.
Bobstamp, You have the best guys on the site advising you & I think , buy it is the word. I have at least 5 or 6 p-51’s in my cabinets that belonged to my CO in WW2 & I have looked forever for Ralph Parr’s F-86 decals in Korea. Neverer found his or Glenn Eaglestons F-86 decals. Definetly give txhe decals a coat of Decal coat by Microscale.
I’ve been around a long time & still build models a lot. Some things you only see once.
Revell, although not uniquely; had a terrible habit of renaming kits and reissuing them without much regard to accuracy.
Hope is a Comfort Class ship. Her sisters are Comfort and Mercy. They have no real resemblance to the Haven Class.
A nifty site to visit is scalemates. They are a member driven data base, usually quite accurate, of kits, histories of same, reviews, very often pdfs of the cartoon pages, and aftermarket parts available.
According to Wikipedia, “SS Hope was a hospital ship operated by Project HOPE. This vessel was originally a US Navy hospital ship, USS Consolation (AH-15).” Consolation, according to Wikipedia and several other sources, was a Haven Class ship, and the first hospital ship to be fitted with a helipad, during the Korean War. Previously, when patients were transported to the ship by helicopter, the helicopters landed on barges next to the ship and lifted aboard by crane, obviously not the most efficient way to get critically wounded soldiers into the ship’s operating rooms. The idea for the helipad came from a surgeon who was on Consolation’s medical staff.
Scalemates scale is wrong for that model as i measured 2 have class models using my 2ft calipers that is both metric & imperial then did the calculations to get the scale.
I have sent a message via eBay.com telling the seller that I want to buy the SS Hope model, but have not yet had a response. eBay.com won’t let me purchase it because the seller “May not ship to Canada.” The same listing is not available on eBay.ca.
