Collection of old, unused VEB kits - Question

[montella]

I recently found an old collection of various VEB civil (and war) aircraft models that haven't been touched.

 

As far as I'm aware, they are from Soviet era and were produced in Soviet Germany.

 

However I honestly don't know if they are valuable or not. And if they are, how much would you say they are worth?

 

I hope this is the right forum and topic.

 

Pictures are attached below. Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

 

[modelldoc]

Interesting collection,

 

you have some treasures and some all day kits.

 

Send me a message, than I can told you more.

 

modelldoc

[bentwaters81tfw]

Some good stuff there. Basic, but accurate in outline. They should sell on condition alone, but they don't normally fetch a high price.

[Groundloop]

The company was not called just VEB - and they were produced in East Germany, not Soviet Germany (or to be pedantic the German Democratic Republic).  All East German company names began with VEB ( Volkseigener Betrieb ) which means Publicly Owned Corporation.

 

"Accurate in Outline"?!!  Certainly does not describe any of the ones I had - DC-8, Comet, Trident.  Only vaguely resembled the real thing ie the Trident had 3 engines!

Edited November 27, 2017 by Groundloop

[skippiebg]

"VEB" is indeed just a corporate abbreviation like "Ltd" or "Inc." and not the company name. The "pukka name" was Plasticart, but only for some of the company's existence, and it carried other names at different periods -- like KVZ... So, for better or worse, VEB has stuck with many as a generic name for 1/100-scale-mostly-arliner-East-German-kits -- a bit like "hoover"...

 

I would agree entirely that accuracy, in outline or in any other sense, was never ever a notable (or even un-notable) virtue. Fidelity was like a rather poor version of a bad Heller, in a way... But all this doesn't matter a hoot -- the likely buyer is not a builder, but a collector or a certain age. I sold a similar lot of unbuilt Plasticart kits last April for I dare not say how much in euro. One tip, though -- it pays to look for Russian or East European (including German) collectors, and to dig a tad deeper than the Ebays of this world. Get Google working and in under ten minutes you'd know who to pitch! (I'd also suggest avoiding the one or two Transatlantic jokers who charge upwards of 80 bucks for any bit of plastic predating 1995.)

 

And a very valuable find you have there, indeed!

 

The dreadful Il-14 always fetches amazingly high prices, to an extent depending on factors like release date and state of preservation; but always high! The really rather crappy Il-18 also holds surprisingly high value. The Tu-104 is a cracker. The Tu-114 is another cracker. The DC-8 is another... And a Be-6, indeed -- probably the very nicest, most accurate, and most universal (1/72 scale) of all "VEB" kits!

 

All in all, you don't have almost any dross or also-rans. Western Europe saw ample numbers of Tu-134 and Il-62 imports at different times, and plenty of Tridents for some reason. The Tu-154 was also common-ish (and here I refer to 1980-ish to 1990-ish releases only), but hilariously/notoriously only as a box; inside, there typically lurked an Il-62 (and no, Il-62 boxes did not hide Tu-154s!). The joys of Communist distribution  

 

Good luck!

 

Edited November 27, 2017 by skippiebg
spelling

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Wow this takes me back. My dad bought me a Pan Am 727 and the Mi6 as a treat of sorts when my little sister was in hospital for a while when she was 2 or 3 years old. That would have made me about 5 I suppose.

[Max Headroom]

I built the Be-6 many moons ago when Mrs H ‘donated’ it to my (then) small son. Not many parts but a fun build. I think I still have the ampule of ‘bio hazard’ glue somewhere!

 

Interesting collection 

 

Trevor

[glatisant]

That's a nice little windfall. I have a Saab Draken 1/100th scale,and the remnants of a Yak 24 "Horse" that I built a very long time ago. Collectors items now.

[montella]

Thanks guys! I appreciate it.

Perhaps I'll build one of the smaller ones and upload the result here, as going through these kits has piqued my interest.

 

 

[Eric Mc]

I've got their not too bad 1/25 Vostok in the stash. I did build one decades ago and would love to give it another go. I thought it was crude and oversimplified when I first built it. But I've now seen the real thing  and it I can see that it was actually pretty accurate. The 1/1 scale version is genuinely crude and simple.

[The Tomohawk Kid]

15 minutes ago, Eric Mc said:

I've got their not too bad 1/25 Vostok in the stash. I did build one decades ago and would love to give it another go. I thought it was crude and oversimplified when I first built it. But I've now seen the real thing  and it I can see that it was actually pretty accurate. The 1/1 scale version is genuinely crude and simple.

The Plasticart Vostok is a copy of the Revell kit. The styrene they used was extremely hard and brittle and was not responsive to most of the traditional modelling adhesives. It was the only option for a long period when the Revell kit was OoP and fetching high prices on the collector market.

 

Thomo.

[Eric Mc]

I always wondered what the link was between the Revell and VEB versions of the Vostok. Being a Soviet era device, I always assumed the VEB version came first as I thought that East Germany would have had better access to the originals than the US.

[The Tomohawk Kid]

21 minutes ago, Eric Mc said:

I always wondered what the link was between the Revell and VEB versions of the Vostok. Being a Soviet era device, I always assumed the VEB version came first as I thought that East Germany would have had better access to the originals than the US.

The Revell kit was first available in 1968, the Plasticart one didn't surface until the mid '70s and was not commonly available in the West until the mid '80s. Both arn't overerly accurate. But, the Revell kit is definatley more buildable.

 

Here is a nice build blog of the Revell kit.

 

http://spacemodels.nuxit.net/Vostok1/index.htm

 

Thomo.

Edited December 3, 2017 by The Tomohawk Kid

[Eric Mc]

Thanks for the link.

 

I wonder how Revell managed to get access to a Vostok in 1968.

 

I originally built the VEB kit around 1983.

[The Tomohawk Kid]

26 minutes ago, Eric Mc said:

 

 

I wonder how Revell managed to get access to a Vostok in 1968.

 

They almost certainly didn't get close access to a prototype. I venture it was designed from photographs and what else was in the public domain back then, which included a Vostok on display at the 1967 Paris Airshow -  a lot of kits were developed this way back then.

 

Thomo.

Edited December 3, 2017 by The Tomohawk Kid

[The Tomohawk Kid]

How the aerospace world looked 50 years ago, times were a little more optimistic or pesimistic dependant on your point of view. This was the  Soviets first major showing at a Western airshow.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2017 by The Tomohawk Kid

[cocky05d]

It says on the boxes Zschopau ?,same town where the old MZ motorbikes were made, (ring ding ding ) ,thats the sound they made.

[modelldoc]

Yes, is it the same town, but both industies are gone.

 

Revell made his Wostok spaceship from a model at the USSR Scjience show in Canada in 1968,

The Plasticart kit is different from the Revell issue.

 

modelldoc

[The Tomohawk Kid]

21 hours ago, modelldoc said:

Yes, is it the same town, but both industies are gone.

 

Revell made his Wostok spaceship from a model at the USSR Scjience show in Canada in 1968,

The Plasticart kit is different from the Revell issue.

 

modelldoc

The Plasticart Vostok clearly has Revell (ahm..) heritage.

 

A full size Vostock capsule was on display at the 1967 Paris airshow.

 

Thomo.

[sunderland]

Hi All,

I was recently given the TU-2. Rudimentary instructions and very shiny plastic.

[skippiebg]

Oh, I remember that glass-hard shiny plastic! Fit to make your hair stand on end!

[Martian]

I suppose you could send them to somebody you don't like?

 

Martian

[KRK4m]

Some 40-50 years ago I had built all the kits from the 16 boxes visible at your pictures. Moreover there were another 20 or so - they were my first steps into the aircraft modelling world before the Airfix, Heller and Matchbox 1/72 kits appeared behind the Iron Curtain in the mid 70s.  

Beware that (even forgeting the 1:25 Vostok that I have built in 1969, thus it must have appeared before that date) there was no common scale through the series - some kits were done in 1:40 (Czech Aero 45), other in 1:50 (MiG-15), 1:72 (Ju G-24, Su-7B, Tu-2, An-14 and Be-6), 1:75 (An-2), 1:87 (Baade 152, Il-14, Mi-6) and 1:100 (11 from the 16 shown by you above plus: An-12, An-24, Boeing 727-100, Dassault Mercure, HS Trident 2, Il-28, L-60 Brigadyr, L-410 Turbolet, Mi-1, Mi-4, MiG-21F, SAAB Draken, Sud Caravelle, Yak-24P and Yak-40). I know that Scalemates do credit the An-2 with 1:72 and Baade with 1:100 census but the real things look a little bit different

As all the friends above have said all these kits are crude, deprieved of detail, made of extremely hard and shiny plastic, sometimes already painted (by manufacturer) silver. The wheels and props were usually made of (gloss of course) black plastic and the decals displayed strong yellowish "transparent" area between the small elements like digits and letters...

I still do have somewhere the boxtops of at least 20 (maybe 30) of them while the models themselves stay still at my dad's home since I left them in 1979

Cheers

Michael

Edited December 29, 2017 by KRK4m
SE-210 Caravelle omitted in original post

[skippiebg]

5 minutes ago, KRK4m said:

... my first steps into the aircraft modelling world ... behind the Iron Curtain ...  

 

Beware that ... there was no common scale through the series ...

Join the club: Bulgaria in my case, difference being that Airfix, Heller and Matchbox 1/72 kits never did appear there until after 1990...

 

You are right about the lack of a uniform scale. I'd like to add that the Trident is in the railway scale of 1/87th, while the Tu-114 is in the ever-popular (though oddly fitting) 1/114th scale...

 

None of this scale madness or poor detail matters, of course, because these kits appeal either to nostalgic modellers wishing to revisit their uncritical and existential childhood years, or collectors who won't build them anyway...

 

[KRK4m]

12 hours ago, skippiebg said:

I'd like to add that the Trident is in the railway scale of 1/87th, while the Tu-114 is in the ever-popular (though oddly fitting) 1/114th scale...

 

Here we differ a little, I'm afraid to say

First - I'm unable to check the Trident 2E measures now, but if she was made in 1/87 the model should measure 40 x 34cm (35 x 30cm in 1:100). Nevertheless I remember her being much smaller than B727-100 (41 x 33cm). Thus maybe something like 1:96, but surely not 1:87, as used for the Il-14, Baade 152 and Mi-6 kits.

Second - the Tu-114 wrong size follows the data obtainable when the moulds were made. Instruction sheet says length 47 m and span 57 m while in reality these were 54 m and 51 m respectively. And the kit measures exactly 47cm in O/L (1:114) and 57cm in span (1:90). All we know that cutting the wingtips (30mm each side) is easier than adding the 70mm fuselage section, but all other details (i.e. fuselage, wheels and props dia) are almost exactly 1:100.

Cheers

Michael

Edited December 29, 2017 by KRK4m
cosmetics :)