In the brief run through of Fujimi A6M3 kits included in the Aeromodeller Zero blog last month I included a box with nice art but the unusual trademark of 'Shizuoka Hobby'. Since then another boxing has turned up (shown above) with identical art and layout but the standard Fujimi trademark of that era and numbered 7A2-100. What does this mean? Well, I'm hoping it is like one of those rare printing mistakes on stamps and the 'Shizuoka Hobby' box turns out to be a very valuable rarity... Seriously though it would be interesting to learn the story behind the different logos. Can any Japanese readers help?
As before I have updated the original article to include this example of box art.
Image credit:- Box art © Fujimi Mokei Co. Ltd., circa 1960-70
2 comments:
Hi Nick,
Looking at these Fujimi-boxes and the earlier ones I began to wonder about the scales. LS and Hasegawa had their 1/75 kits, Tamiya 1/72 and Fujimi 1/70 in the early '60s
Marusan started with both the 1/100 range and the 1/50 kits, Jake and Kate. Tamiya followed with the same range of their 1/72 kits (Raiden,Tojo, Frank) in 1/50 but also the Pete , Myrt, Oscar and the Goshikisen. I guess they tried to set a 'standard' but why that 1/70 ? eventually everyone adopted the Airfix-standard -beginning with the boxes.
Hi Jacob
It is an interesting subject. Working on an LS Ki-43-I Oscar recently I came to the conclusion that it is not actually to 1/75th scale! The fuselage is short against the 1/72nd scale plans I was using by 3mm in the section between windscreen and cowling and by 2mm in the rear fuselage. The wings fit perfectly in span but are slightly narrow in chord at the trailing edge by 1mm. Despite these localised discrepancies I did not recognise an overall difference in scale which would equate to 1/75th vs 1/72nd.
Also, despite the discrepancies the shape generally matched the plans better than the Fujimi kit.
Nichimo kits were also marketed originally as 1/70th. I think the Japanese kits began to be marketed as 1/72 as they were exported to compete with the domestic markets in Europe, the USA and UK.
We have had some good insider histories for companies like Airfix, Frog, Revell and Monogram. It would be interesting to learn more about the early Japanese companies but I guess any information "out there" is in Japanese!
Regards
Nick
Post a Comment