Lack of Revell Ships - Are Releases Based on Any Reasoning?

...well, the NASCAR craze produced a lot of NASCAR kits...until they started wanting a cut...

After seeing a bunch of comic book adverts from the Sixties and Seventies...and from what I remember from my formative years as a modeler (I was a two-year member of Revell's Master Modeler Club and still have the fabric patch to prove it!)...

I think the really big times for ship models in the popular culture were at the time of JFK's presidency (as he himself was an avid ship modeler) and around the Bicentennial, when all things Revolution was "in" and there was that July 4th tall-ship regatta in New York harbor. Revell made big things of their Calypso kit, and the Inchon-class assault ship kit, when they appeared...but I didn't get much excited in them. Granted I would probably build an Inchon _now_ if I could find one.

Stephen "FPilot" Bierce/IPMS #35922 {Sig Quotes Removed on Request}

If the conflict is popular, the sales go up; if it's unpopular, sales take a dive. The Vietnam War almost croaked military models in the late 1960's - early 1970's.

Pat

I found a catalog from the 60's and70's and it was full of ships,

My first recollection of a Revell ship was the Missouri in early 1950s - first ship kit I built as a kid. Vastly popular - people still remembered the surrender in Tokyo Bay, Then they released the New Jersey - - Had instructions to paint in Camo - I think that made it a bit unpopular given the paints at the time.

Late 50s and early 60s with the new Carriers coming out seemed to be the big time for navy ships along with Cutty Sark, Kearsage etc.

Then Vietnam and Military was out. Few half attempts at battle damaged aircraft and brown water patrol boats - all soon disappeared from the shelves.

In addition to the war the paint situation was bad, and Revells Box scale where all ships were the same size was a bit of a turn-off. Renwall did four ships all in the same scale - a bit heavy on the detail - but looked nice together.

To me the big change was late sixties when companies like Official Paint brought out good colors in an easy to apply paint. Then came airbrushes to the hobby, and of course Tamiya.

But while Tamiya was coming out with highly detailed kits at $20, like the Dam Buster, Revell was coming out with junk that was cheaper - like their Tokyo Raider B-25 - the guns looked like broom sticks. Revell didn't seem to have the ability to market high end stuff.

Then in the 70s - finally good ships all in 1/700. AND when the different sisters were different - the kits reflected it. Revell would release one sister then repackage without mods.

Bottom line is I think some of the Revell renditions in ships were good for the time but the scales limit use of aftermarket, and the problems with accuracy makes many of them obsolete.

Val Kraut

Well one story I heard as a kid from a guy who was former Navy from the Hornet and familiar with the mission, those WERE broomsticks. A number of machines guns were removed to save weight. IIRC, the only defensive weapons left onboard were the tail guns.

Thanks for the rest of your comments, very insightful and summed it up quite nicely.

Actually the so-called "tail guns" WERE the broomsticks.

They can be seen in this photo:

The "normal" B-25B had no tail guns, only an upper and lower turret.

The lower turrent was removed from the Tokyo raider aircraft to save weight, leaving only the upper turret for aerial defense.

It was thought that the simulated tail guns might deter an aft attack by Japanese interceptors.

Cheers,

You have to recall that most of the Revell kits came out in the late

1950s and early 1960s. In those days modelers would eagerly snap up anything out there.

Renwal was the first one to actually rain on the parade by introducing "constant scale models" with a whole series of 1/500 scale kits in the very late 1950/early 1960s. They covered about one each of everything in the US Navy at the time and the "box scale" Revell kits paled in comparsion (remember sophistication was not a big issue back then!)

Later Airfix released British and German kits in 1/600 scale. Even Aurora got into the scale world with more 1/600 scale ships.

As we discovered things like "scale" and then -- horrors! -- "accuracy" the Revell kits sort of fell by the wayside. Also, when the cost of molds started to skyrocket the idea of making a box-scale kit from the ground up that would not sell was not a very bright one.

Some Revell kits will probably sell forever -- the USS Arizona and USS Olympia are true classics and can still be turned into nice models today. But most of the rest are OBE and as such only nostalgia.

Cookie Sewell

I once heard (but have never confirmed) that the USS Arizona kit would never go out of production as a tribute to her crew. The USS Missouri was one of Revell's very first kits and is a consistent best-seller. Revell has probably sold more of these kits than any other kit.

Well, it turns out that many of those kits in the old catalogs are the very same ones now offered by Revell/Germany. I'm really suprised by some of the old kits they have in their catalog. For example, the N.S. Savannah nuclear freighter was somewhat hard to find, even when it was in production, but a few weeks ago I bought one at my L.H.S. I was there again tonight and saw a Vosper PT boat which was sold back in the '60s as the "McHale's Navy" PT-73. I also saw an RMS Queen Mary which was a classic '60s kit. These old ship kits offered by Revell/Germany are very often quite good considering the former state- of-the-art and deserve a look.

Martin

I must have been keeping the industry going all by myself. ;)

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

trying to find the savannah is what brought me here originally. i still don't have one, but i know where, now.

i helped. had roomates freak out, one idiot destoryed 12 aircraft because, "they're like WARPLANES MAN! DON'T YOU GET IT!!!" i pounded lumps on the idiot and banged his girlfriend. should have taken cash....

The Revell kit mentions the deletion of the ineffectual lower turret and gave you a panel to cover the hole as well as the turret.

Looks a tad like the mounting on a early B-26 Marauder

Pat

USS Olympia is particularly nice and assembles very well, particularly given its vintage.

Pat

Remember these things?:

it, man! It's so groovy! It's so desperate! Early on in the war, they were turning out Vietnam related kits like they were going out of style...which they indeed were.

Pat

The Revell one is okay, but the Glencoe ITC reissue is a larger and more impressive model of it. They are fairly cheap on ebay.

Pat

These were re-releases - the first had the crew sections of the Convair shuttle, and the XSL-01 Moon ship. The other was a conceptial atomic rocket from one of the aerospace companys. I understood you wanted to get the crew away from the nuclear core - the dynamics of swing along behind didn't make much sense. But all three had nice crew quarter details for the time. I really wish Revel would re-issue the XSL, Convair shuttle and Space station. When they did the Jupiter-C as a anniversary kiy I managed to get 2, they seemed to disappear really fast and not too many dealers had them.

I believe it was MPC that did four combat damaged Vietnam aircraft, I built several.

Val Kraut

"> Remember these things?:

and my mom threw away my box collection. and about 30 kits. she didn't even yard sale them.

Originally, the Solaris was the Krafft Ehricke "Helios" moonship concept:

They did re-release the Convair Shuttle a few years back.

IMC did those; someone was supposed to be reissuing them...Hawk? The whole series were F-100, F-105, A-4, RF-4, A-1, and MiG-21 IIRC. Is Hawk still in existence after their come-back? They used to have a sub-section on the Lindberg homepage, but that appears to be gone.

Pat

Mine sent me out to the incinerator with around twenty-five Scale Modeler magazines at the bottom of the trash can. I got them out of the fire, but burned my hands in the process.

Pat