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A NOSTALGIC TRIBUTE TO FROG MODEL KITS


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Fascinating thread. I don’t really remember much about Frog kits....I was a Matchbox loyalist, but I think I recall spending some pocket money on a P38 that may have been Frog. The P38 was always a favourite of mine after I saw a picture of one in one of my Dad’s WW2 aircraft magazines.

I don’t remember much about the kit other than it was possibly green plastic, with a light blue stand included....the base of the stand was dome shaped with a map of the world embossed on it. Funny the things that stick in your mind from nearly 50 years ago!

Edited by F1xena
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This thread is better than any book I read recently, seriously!

I'm sitting in the office at work on this rather boring day and I read through all the pages and although I'm bit too young for the FROG era, I still have one particular memory of their kits. First and foremost I love the overly dramatic, but very inspiring box arts of yesteryear, some of which I remember - the Mustang Mk. II or the Shackleton for example.
In the early 90's back in my small hometown in Poland, when I was little there was a...I think it was a pawn shop, which doesn't exist anymore and there you could buy literally everything, among other things people pawned old kits. Their display changed pretty frequently, once a week maybe, and one day they had a huge pile of kits on display. Most were domestic paper model kits like Maly Modelarz, plastic kits - early Heller, Italeri and of course Airfix, Matchbox and some FROG kits, too. Don't really remember which exact kits these were, I was like 5 - 6 years old back then, but I remembered the logos on the boxes later when I started building models. And now that I've seen some of those boxes and bags in the very first post of this thread, I had the Mustang flashing somewhere in the back of my head.
Later we had a small toy shop where you could buy kits, again, mostly domestic brands - don't even know the name any more (PZW maybe) but I recently found an old Jantar Standard glider I built back in the day, these were among the very first kits I made and also the last before I moved to Germany with my parents in the mid 90's. Here my journey with this hobby begun with ...yikes...the Starfix Spitfire :D

Thanks for the trip on memory lane!

 

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9 hours ago, F1xena said:

Fascinating thread. I don’t really remember much about Frog kits....I was a Matchbox loyalist, but I think I recall spending some pocket money on a P38 that may have been Frog. The P38 was always a favourite of mine after I saw a picture of one in one of my Dad’s WW2 aircraft magazines.

I don’t remember much about the kit other than it was possibly green plastic, with a light blue stand included....the base of the stand was dome shaped with a map of the world embossed on it. Funny the things that stick in your mind from nearly 50 years ago!

 

I remember old Revell models from the '60's having a domed circular coloured base with a map of the world embossed on it. 

Edited by Neil.C
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Just in case you need to know, they are having a "FROG/Matchbox Group Build" over on Hyperscale that started this week, March 2 or something.

 

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/hyperscale/the-frog-and-matchbox-group-build-fmgb-starts-this-t522067.html

 

Seems with all the nostalgic affection we all have for these old kit companies  we grew up with, I thought someone here would enjoy yet another opportunity to build more FROG kits. Or Matchbox, or both...

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15 hours ago, F1xena said:

Fascinating thread. I don’t really remember much about Frog kits....I was a Matchbox loyalist, but I think I recall spending some pocket money on a P38 that may have been Frog. The P38 was always a favourite of mine after I saw a picture of one in one of my Dad’s WW2 aircraft magazines.

 

Thank you Fixena, the FROG P-38 Lightning has a special place in my childhood too. It was the very first FROG model that I had, it was a Christmas present in 1967 and my father built it for me. It was moulded in the sand coloured plastic in which a number of FROG kits appeared in the 1960s. One mainwheel survived from it for many years in my spares, my father must have followed the FROG building tips on the instruction sheet because he had melted the end of the axle so the wheel would rotate.

 

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Five years later I bought myself another one from Andersons newsagents in Whitby, just next to the old swing bridge across the river that divides Whitby in half. It was moulded in grey plastic this time, much to my disappointment. It needed a lot of weight in the nose to keep it on its nose wheel and I had to strengthen the undercarriage legs with sprue.

 

This fabulous box art is the actual one from the Lightning I bought in Whitby back in 1972.

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10 hours ago, RupertTheBear said:

Thanks for the trip on memory lane!

 

Thank you for your kind comments and for sharing your childhood memories of the models with us.

 

May I also say that your use of English is a joy, unlike my pigeon Maltese English.

 

regards, adey 

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Just on the subject of classic models of the P-38 Lightning, I should maybe finish this old Airfix one some day .............

 

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It was a surprise find in an Airfix Beaufighter box which came from a car boot sale I think, it just needs a pilot and tail plane end pieces and I could display it in flying mode on one of my old Airfix stands.

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12 hours ago, adey m said:

 

Thank you Fixena, the FROG P-38 Lightning has a special place in my childhood too. It was the very first FROG model that I had, it was a Christmas present in 1967 and my father built it for me. It was moulded in the sand coloured plastic in which a number of FROG kits appeared in the 1960s. One mainwheel survived from it for many years in my spares, my father must have followed the FROG building tips on the instruction sheet because he had melted the end of the axle so the wheel would rotate.

 

resized_06c57826-f885-44ac-9808-13d7ebec

 

Five years later I bought myself another one from Andersons newsagents in Whitby, just next to the old swing bridge across the river that divides Whitby in half. It was moulded in grey plastic this time, much to my disappointment. It needed a lot of weight in the nose to keep it on its nose wheel and I had to strengthen the undercarriage legs with sprue.

 

This fabulous box art is the actual one from the Lightning I bought in Whitby back in 1972.

Aha.......it says transfers not decals how very British...not relevant to this thread really ,there is a thread dedicated to the transfer decal debate but I can't find it  😕 

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16 hours ago, adey m said:

 

Thank you for your kind comments and for sharing your childhood memories of the models with us.

 

May I also say that your use of English is a joy, unlike my pigeon Maltese English.

 

regards, adey 

Thank you very much :) Unfortunately my English degraded a bit over the years, especially recently by lack of contact with English native speakers but I'm glad it's still comprehensible :thumbsup:

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7 hours ago, junglierating said:

Aha.......it says transfers not decals how very British...not relevant to this thread really ,there is a thread dedicated to the transfer decal debate but I can't find it

 

resized_d5e89db7-2bad-415b-affc-0c60d351

 

It can also be transfers !

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On 07/03/2021 at 20:06, Rabbit Leader said:

Now I know this is a Frog appreciation thread, however if my calculations and history is correct, 2022 is the 50th anniversary of the first Matchbox (Lesney Products) kit releases. Yet another one of those great British plastic kit manufacturers now lost to childhood memories. 

 

I remember seeing the first Matchbox released kits in Andersons newsagents in Whitby in spring 1973 ( the same shop that sold FROG kits ) .

I bought the Lysander, beautifully moulded in two shades of brown plastic, colours I could live with without painting it. It seemed on a different level to all the Airfix, FROG and Revell kits I had built up to then, crisp mouldings, no flash, no loose parts, everything went together with precision and superb transfers. Only thing that let them down for me was the poor standard of artwork and the poor colour printing of the colour guide on the back of the boxes.

 

And at last I had a Lysander that captured the look of the real one as I had been so disappointed with the new Airfix Lysander released the previous year. Only thing that let it down was the absence of the landing lights in the wheel fairings.

 

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The first releases are featured here. I also bought the Gladiator and again was very impressed with the quality and the precision of it, but less impressed by the bright red and cream coloured plastics ..............

 

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The pictures here are from this book of mine, a great read for anyone interested in Matchbox models, and all in colour too.

 

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First pages dealing with the initial releases in 1973 and showing the imaginative colours that the Hawker Fury was moulded in. I thought that the Fury and Gladiator artwork was good, I could not believe that they were painted by the same person who did the Lysander and FW190 too, maybe they were not, or maybe the artist had a passion for British biplanes but not for war scenes.

 

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The reverse cover of the book, all of the Matchbox kits are featured within its pages and it covers where they went after Matchbox left us.

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6 minutes ago, stevej60 said:

Hmmm I think a nostalgic tribute to Matchbox model kit's thread is in order,oh and another GB!

 

3 minutes ago, bigbadbadge said:

Oh yes that would be great too

 

Your wish is my command  !

 

 

Cheers Pat

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I have to say that many of you guys have far better memories than me.

While I can remember the types of kits I built as a lad (mostly aircraft but several tanks, ships and others) I'm blowed if I can recall the precise details, eg the mark of a particular Spitfire, or the year I bought the kit. Is there some special secret to all of this? Or is it just that you're younger than me and therefore have more grey cells remaining? :wonder:

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Whilst we wallow in nostalgia, anyone remember the "1/48 scale Impact" kits, first released at the time of the film "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines"?

I built a number, they were a challenge but brilliant. 

 

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46 minutes ago, Timmas said:

I have to say that many of you guys have far better memories than me.


From a personal perspective, it helps if you never grow up! 
 

Cheers.. Dave (real age 50, acting age 10). 

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24 minutes ago, Rabbit Leader said:


From a personal perspective, it helps if you never grow up! 
 

Cheers.. Dave (real age 50, acting age 10). 

I agree, my daughter tells everyone I am 12 !!!

In my mind I am 18 still.

Chris really 51.

 

 

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56 minutes ago, 224 Peter said:

Whilst we wallow in nostalgia, anyone remember the "1/48 scale Impact" kits, first released at the time of the film "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines"?

I built a number, they were a challenge but brilliant. 

 

I loved that film.  I have just dug out the Lindberg and Pyro versions of the 4 interwar British biplanes and am about to embark on the Flycatcher when I get my current project a bit further along.

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