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Posted by SanDiegoShipMan
on 10/10/2009, 3:56 pm, in reply to "Conversion of the Week"
72.220.65.150
Unfortunately, beginning back in the 1970s, just as the Xerox machine and the computer turned everybody into a publisher, rubber mold-making material made everybody into producers of 1:1200 ship models. This includes Metal Miniatures, Red Ensign, and a few others whose names I have forgotten.
Metal Miniatures in the 1970s began producing their line of ship models. Even though the masters for the models came from Comet, Framburg, South Salem Studios, Wiking, Mercator, Trident, Star, Neptun, Navis and other producers, the entire line was, for a time advertised as "Framburg" models. I should know, because I provided Metal Miniatures with more than 20 to 30 plus out-of-production models with no copyright protection, to use as masters or prototypes for MM ships. This included Comet and Framburg models and some South Salem studios models, not some of the others listed above, most of which were still in production.
This, of course, was false. Not deliberately so, but intended more as a tribute to a great line of ship i.d. models from WWII. After all, the owners of MM were model railroad experts, not ship enthusiasts.
So, many new collectors who come across models claimed as Framburg under the trade name Metal Miniatures, have been mislead into believing that many non-Framburg models are, indeed, castings of real Framburg models. Of course, the collectors would know this only if they possessed a copy of the original MM list and actually owned or at least seen all of the models offered under the banner "Framburg" models.
The Albatross model came from a Comet (near as in can tell) model. Framburg never made a model of the Albatross--and damn few other ships, as the 1:1200 line was limited to a little more than fifty individual ship models.
Good luck, collectors. Do you really know who made your models?
--Previous Message--
:
: This week’s conversion returns to youthful
: fancies and has more than a few things wrong
: with it. The main issue is synchronicity,
: as the late 1945 paint scheme would have
: been applied when Albatross was already
: stripped as a repair ship. She had also
: left Australian service to become a simple
: “HMS.” But so be it. With the “mea culpas”
: out of the way, she is a pretty good
: illustration of the way I was enhancing
: Framburgs and Superiors in the 1970s.
:
: The work employed all the usual techniques I
: was using in this period. File off all
: molded-in detail to obtain a flat deck
: surface and take it from there. The guns,
: as most of you will recognize, are Superior
: US 5”/38 open mounts, the boats and rafts
: are Schlingelhoff plastic castings, the mast
: is surplus from a Navis pre-dreadnought, and
: all of the bulwarks and tubs are fashioned
: from sheet copper bent to shape.
:
: I sold this model to Robert Liu in Monterey
: last spring and hope he is enjoying it as
: much as I am enjoying his little book.
:
: Best to all.
:
:
:
:
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