Who's F-5 is it anyway?

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

I was in a local hobby shop yesterday and came across a 1/72 F-5B in Revell Germany packaging.

Does anyone know anything about the origins of this kit?

The only 1/72 F-5B kits I’ve ever seen were the old Esci kit and the even older Hasegawa kit.

I don’t suspect its either of those kits as Italeri seems to have locked up all the old Esci molds and I don’t think anyone would touch the old Hasegawa molds due to their poor quality by todays standards.

I was thinking it might be old Matchbox moldings, but by the pictures the surface detail looks pretty fine and is a mix of raised and engraved details.

The kit comes with Spanish and Dutch decal options and is a fairly new release (under the RG label anyway).

Is this something old or did RG give us a brand new tooling for this bird?

I decided to hold back from throwing my money at it until I can get a few answers on the origins of it.

Thanks in advance

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Hi Upnorth.

I’m not 100% sure but it sounds quite like a repackaged testors mold that Italieri put out a few years back. Nice build-zero detail. I don’t think it’s a new mold because if it was, Italieri would have released it as well. Let me explain, over here when either Rev. or IT. have a new mould they swap one with another and change the decal options. What this means is that it is a lot cheaper to wait for the Italieri version to be released as they are usually £7.00 cheaper, and it is exactly the same kit.
As there is no news here of IT releasing a new F-5, I’m pretty sure it’s not a new mould. If I’m right and it is the Testors kit-put your wallet away. It’s just not worth it.

Hope this helps,

Darren.

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Darren,

That F-5B is a reboxed ESCI kit. Which is fine, by the way, and so much better than the Matchbox kit.

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Thanks guys :slight_smile: