Ever a definitive answer as to where the Aurora molds are?

Monogram bought all the Aurora tooling when they went out of business so any Aurora molds that still exist would be owned by Revell-Monogram.

Al wrote in reply to:

Al you left out the more standard answers

1. The tooling was destroyed
2. The tooling was lost in transit in a railroad accident.
3. The ship carrying the tooling sank
4. The tooling was worn out/damaged/stolen

Rick

True, but I seem to recall that one of the grandsons of Aurora's founder claimed (and that's probably the most important term) that Monogram only had claim to any of the "active" molds. Any molds not currantly in use or that had actually been retired were retained by his family and he went on to say that they still have them to this (that) time. As I said, as to the truth of that story.... BTW, what ever happened to that company that he wanted to start up?

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

That it is..... ;)

currantly in use or that had

He was spouting a load of BS. There weren't *any* Aurora molds in use at the time of their demise and Monogram, Revell-Monogram, and even Revell AG have since issued kits from Aurora tooling.

I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count.

Only because I don't engage in speculation...... ;)

Could be all the above, some combination of the above, or none of the above. I sure as hell don't know.....

According to Greenberg's Guide to Aurora Model Kits by Thomas Graham:

Nabisco sold the plastic model department of Aurora to Monogram. Late in 1977 the molds, reference materials, artwork, prototypes and the kit archive were loaded into trailers which were placed on railroad flatcars. Passing through upstate New York there was a derailment, scattering molds across a frozen field. Once the molds arrived at Monogram it was found that five had been damaged beyond repair: Aero Jet Commander, Halberstadt CLII, Breguet 14, Albatross C3 and Cessna Skymaster. The rest of the molds were inventoried and those not worth repairing or that didnt' fit Monogram's product line were destroyed. Aurora had already destroyed many unusued molds prior to the sale, notably those of the obscure Guys And Gals of All Nations series. Mongram exec Robert Johnson is quoted as saying there was a "feeding frenzy" of mold destruction with little consideration of what was being lost. Both old and new molds were destroyed. Some of the Racing Scenes molds were damaged and so the whole series was junked. The Seaview molds were junked. While information on what remains is sketchy since they may be re issued, it's is thought around 70 of the Aurora molds still exist, including some that have never reissued. It's believed the molds for the four large sailing ship models still exist. Also the molds for all five of the original knights, Tarzan and Captain America are believed to still be intact. Apparently ten of the 1/48 tank kits molds are still intact, even though only a couple have ever been reissued.

Mark Levine

In article , The Old Timer wrote:

Makes me wonder whatever happened to Glencoe's plan to re-issue the old ITC Stinson Tr-Motor.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

A couple of years ago, I had a conversation with Nick Argento who told me that financial concerns were slowly stfangling his company. Most of the molds that he obtained were s**te and required considerable work to bring them up to a standard that could bring him a return. At the time he stated that the Bell X-1B was next on his list (hasn't happened yet 8-( ) and he wanted to add on landing gear and a cockpit interior. To fix these molds and produce the models, he generally need a considerable amount of cash, IIRC, close to a quarter million $$dollar$$, and the banks were not too keen about lending money "to make toys." All I can assume is that the Stinson molds are either incomplete or as pitted as the Disney Space Station molds were. Having built the ITC version years ago (its still downstairs in a rather poor state) I can safely say that its toy-like and would need a ~lot~ of work to bring up to modern standards, so Lord knows what problems Nick faced on ~his~ end of the project.

-- John ___ __[xxx]__ (o - ) --------o00o--(_)--o00o-------

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written - Henry Kissinger

As well as some of the car kits. In fact, I'm certain that the Aurora Maserati 3000GT kit was reissued in a Monogram box because I have one. Not that the *new* PL stuff isn't great to see, but being able to track down affordable kits of the '56 Chrysler and the Batmobile precursor Predicta is wonderful, don't you think? So maybe these didn't take the train ...

-- C.R. Krieger (Been there; done that)

I had a Stinson many years ago and played it to death leaving me with just the crew and passengers from the kit. They're not real well-defined as mouldings. The rest of the plane relies on my memories as to its condition. I assume they were all moulded in red plastic.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

warp2 snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (C.R. Krieger) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Monogram also got the airliners. I have a PA 747 in the Aurora box and another identical in the Monogram box.

Yeah, but those weren't originally Aurora kits. They were done by Revell.

The Polar Lights repops of Aurora kits are reverse-engineered.

The movie monsters (Frankenstein, Wolf-man, Dracula, etc.) have "produced by Revell-Monogram for Cinemodels" on the box side. Rob Gronovius Modern US armor at

Gee! Have Polar Lights been taking lessons from the Chinese??? :-)

Bill Shuey

Thanks, Rob. I didn't know that (obviously)!

CR,

The '56 Chrysler is an old Revell tool, and the Predicta (actually a Darryl Starbird custom, not the "precursor" to the TV Batmobile) was by Monogram.

I think you mean the Lincoln Futura dream car, which was a Revell kit from

Art

Ah, well, I at least knew it was *one* of those companies whose models I *didn't* build. The PL box art reminds me so much of the old Aurora aircraft I did before I swore off 1) Aurora and 2) aircraft. ;^) I rarely did anything that wasn't in an AMT or MPC box. So, I was an idiot then; I'm a flakier one now ...

-- C.R. Krieger (Been there; done that)