"1/700 kit nostalgia" Topic

So a lot of you have figured out I like ships. I started building ship kits around age 8, that being 1967. In them days Revell, Renwall, Aurora, MPC and a couple others put out a lot of "Box scale" kits, Airfix and in some cases Aurora had their 1/600 lines, Pyro marketed sailing ships in a couple different box scales and there were a few others here and there. Monogram joined up a couple years later with a small line of modern ships, Pyro experimented with 1/1200 scale (including the famous 2-sided Yamato) in an attempt to compete with Eaglewall's ships of the same scale.

But around 1970 I bumped into a kiosk at my local hobby shop (Fields, Buffalo NY) and saw these bagged kits of Japanese WWII ships in a scale (1/700) that seemed really weird. In fact, all the ships looked weird, as the only Japanese ship on the market at that time was Yamato. And everything was in Japanese. While there were a number hanging there, this one that looked to be a cruiser with four turret mounts up front and none in the back was a must-buy even though it was kinda pricey for its size. The only readable word in the package was "Chikuma", and today that ship still has a special place in my heart. I do remember though, wondering where the rest of the hull was as I built it.

Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone else bumped into the bagged kits? And lest you say "these kits were not introduced until 1971, in boxes" – not so. I told this story on Steelnavy.com about 10 years ago and got roundly lampooned UNTIL a gentleman from one of the big four who had been there from the beginning verified that prior to the box release in 1971 there was a pre-release of 2-3 kits from each of the big four, and these kits were distributed to about 15 hobby shops across the US to test the market. Apparently they sold well because when I went back two weeks later for one of the battleships they were sold out. And I about feinted about a year later when suddenly Fields had about 40 of the boxed kits in stock. Its hard being a kid with $5 USD in hand and 40 must-haves on the shelf. I remember Mutsu was the winner that day.

And Lindberg of course.

There was a British company that did great 1/700 kits in the 70's and 80's but am drawing a blank on the name.

You are probably thinking about Matchbox? They did Indianapolis, HMS Kelly, a Manxman type minelayer, and if I remember right, an Atlanta class cruiser, HMS Tiger, Exeter, Fletcher, Graf Spee, KGV and a German Destroyer.

Frog put out an interesting line of kits: Revenge, Exeter, and several 1050's English frigates. These later showed up as Novo kits.

And I forgot…. the little known Hawk kits. They put out a Fletcher, an LST and a Coast Guard cutter that were 1/700. These later showed up as Testors kits.