A NOSTALGIC TRIBUTE TO FROG MODEL KITS

[Space Ranger]

I have that issue! In fact that is the very issue that my Dad brought me back in 1958! I had just celebrated my 12th birthday.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Space Ranger

[Neil.C]

21 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

I have that issue! In fact that is the very issue that my Dad brought me back in 1958! I had just celebrated my 12th birthday.

 

Wow! What a coincidence.

 

It is the Farnborough air show special so I guess it would have sold more copies than usual. 

[adey m]

On 18/02/2021 at 19:16, JOCKNEY said:

You have nothing to fear using any of your Frog decals, they work better than many of the current one being provided with new kits.

 

Heres my recently completed Frog Avenger, decals worked perfectly 

 

Thanks for posting your wonderful FROG Avenger Jockney, I would love to see more of it please, especially the undersurfaces, it is a model you do not see posted much if at all.

 

regards, adey

[adey m]

On 18/02/2021 at 19:49, stevej60 said:

Agree Pat,just finished the Beaufighter original decals!

 

Love your FROG Beaufighter Steve, it looks like one of the 1970s Spin-a-Prop ones with the revised fuselage converting it to an Australian Mark 21.

Edited February 22, 2021 by adey m

[adey m]

On 21/02/2021 at 02:46, Space Ranger said:

e years I probably purchased at least one example of every Airfix and Frog plastic kit ever made,and more copies of R.A.F. Flying Review and its successors. They are mostly gone now, but that chance encounter with a copy of an obscure (to me, at least) British magazine sparked an interest in British aviation and model kits that has remained with me to this day.

 

Wow, thank you Michael for telling us about your memories concerning Airfix and FROG kits. How strange that you could not find Airfix kits and yet FROG kits would turn up in obscure places, here in the UK we certainly knew where to find Airfix kits, but FROG kits would usually appear in odd places.

 

My father would bring aviation magazines home for me from RAF Bawdsey NCO's Mess when they were finished with and these would contain exciting adverts for the latest Airfix kits.

 

 

Adverts like this, with STOP PRESS line drawings showing the latest Airfix kit to be found in the Woolworths stores. These well drawn .Stop Press adverts also appeared in boys comics.

 

 

The Woolworths store on the High Street in Woodbridge where I spent many happy visits during our shopping trips on Saturdays ........... and also where myself and my brothers got many Airfix models, it was here that I saw the new Airfix PE-2 for the first time, I bought it and built it that weekend and was very impressed with the build quality and unusual subject, none of my friends knew what it was when I told them about it though.

 

Many American service men and their families would have visited Woodbridge for their shopping from the nearby USAF air bases at Bentwaters and Woodbridge.  I really miss Woolworths ...............

 

 

And another typical Airfix advert from the 1960s.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by adey m

[noelh]

Having just moved house. I'm opening boxes and came across lots of old catalogues. Oddly two Frog catalogues from 1975 and one from 1974. What a feast of nostalgia. I might scan a few shots from it when I dig out my printer from the pile of boxes in the spare room. 

[Troy Smith]

On 14/02/2021 at 22:08, Troy Smith said:

and then Revell who i wasn't much of a fan of, though I did get a some kits via Green Shield stamps,  a 4 pack of fighters, Ki-61, PZL-11, Fokker Eindekker and something else IIRC, which writing this now looks like some hard to shift items bundled, and were oddly exotic then, and not ones I'd have picked individually, but 'for free' they were more kits that I happily built,  and a 1/32nd Spitfire Mk.I,  this would be 1975 or early 76.....  an odd detail I'd nearly forgotten all about...

ON a different nostalgia trip, (about Byplanes vacform kits) and digging through old Scale Models for info , I was reminded of this by a review of some Revell kits, and went searching for info on Green Shield kits,  and had an idea to see if I could find a catalogue... you pay for a 'pdf.... but how about this sample page from the 1976 catalogue.....item 27 - Revell, set of 4 aeroplanes, 1/72"  1 _1/2 books... note,  also Airfix and even a Tamiya kit

 

from here

https://www.vintagecatalogues.com/1976-green-shield-stamps-98-pages

 

I'm pretty sure I got mine in late 75,  and the relevant page was not there, and no idea if Green Shield ever did Frog kits,  but  perhaps the above image maybe provide another random nostalgia rush...   there are a few more sample pages in the above link if you want more. 

 

I did find this as well, https://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_britain/green_shield_stamps/Green_Shield_Stamps.html

which has a few amusing personal anecdotes, I have dim memories of used a damp sponge to stick in the pages of stamps required...  the link mentions the Green Stamp glue not being very pleasant to lick... and there were loads you had to stick in.

 

 

[Horatio Gruntfuttock]

A kit I have not seen mentioned in this topic ( although I have read through about 3/4 of it) is the Ventura. I believe it was one of the last kits they worked on and a limited number got out into circulation but few were in 'proper' boxes. I have one that I picked up some time in the 80s and it is bagged but in a plain cardboard box , the same size as the ones used for the EE Lightning and Buccaneer. It has no instructions or decals although these were available in those mixed sets that were widely sold in packs dover the last thirty years or so. The parts look pretty good, with some flash on one sprue and featuring those raised panel lines we all love(d to hate?). I do not believe that it formed the basis for the Academy kit. 

Any ideas or comments?

[Space Ranger]

4 minutes ago, Horatio Gruntfuttock said:

A kit I have not seen mentioned in this topic ( although I have read through about 3/4 of it) is the Ventura. I believe it was one of the last kits they worked on and a limited number got out into circulation but few were in 'proper' boxes. I have one that I picked up some time in the 80s and it is bagged but in a plain cardboard box , the same size as the ones used for the EE Lightning and Buccaneer. It has no instructions or decals although these were available in those mixed sets that were widely sold in packs dover the last thirty years or so. The parts look pretty good, with some flash on one sprue and featuring those raised panel lines we all love(d to hate?). I do not believe that it formed the basis for the Academy kit. 

Any ideas or comments?

I have seen only one Frog Ventura kit, and that was years ago. It was complete with 'proper' litho-printed box, instructions, and decals, but the kit's owner had obtained all the components from different sources, probably Frog employees in different departments who obtained them as the company was shutting down.

 

The Academy kit was NOT based on the Frog kit. This was proven conclusively some years ago as well.

[Graham Boak]

It was proven that it was not an exact copy, which is not the same as "not based upon".  Ditto the Academy P-40, F4F and Avenger - which I gather still came with the Tarpon's extra windows, or is this a slander?

[Horatio Gruntfuttock]

8 hours ago, Space Ranger said:

I have seen only one Frog Ventura kit, and that was years ago. It was complete with 'proper' litho-printed box, instructions, and decals, but the kit's owner had obtained all the components from different sources, probably Frog employees in different departments who obtained them as the company was shutting down.

 

The Academy kit was NOT based on the Frog kit. This was proven conclusively some years ago as well.

Apparently the box I recall was the Eastern Express production of the FROG kit as shown on a recent posting on Hyperscale. So the kit must have been produced in the Eastern Bloc after the demise of the company in the UK and the sale/gift/business decision to pass on the moulds to the Soviet bloc countries, Novo being the main and earliest producer. I wonder how many Venturas did make it out?

[malpaso]

Frog must have printed a gazillion sets of Ventura decals as they were included in the lucky-dip sets of Frog decals Hannants were still selling 40 years after the company folded!

[Horatio Gruntfuttock]

And was the FROG Wellington used to produce the Vickers Viking kit by Maquette? Checking the parts seems to back that up.

[dogsbody]

9 hours ago, malpaso said:

Frog must have printed a gazillion sets of Ventura decals as they were included in the lucky-dip sets of Frog decals Hannants were still selling 40 years after the company folded!

 

 

I've got a set that I bought from Mil-Slides, back in the late 80's. It was a pack of 10 FROG decal sheets.

 

 

 

Chris

[adey m]

FROG Lockheed PV-1 Ventura G.R.V

 

 

For anybody who is interested in the history of FROG models I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This is my copy and I have looked up the Ventura kit inside it and what the authors say is that there were 200 mouldings of the kit made in 1977. They also say that there were 40,000 boxes printed !!!! and thousands of transfers sheets printed too.

 

 

I have found this photo of the intended box top courtesy of oldmodelkits.com

 

 

The reverse side of the box showing the FROG colour painting guide courtesy of The Unofficial Airfix Modellers Forum.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by adey m

[mick b]

1 hour ago, adey m said:

FROG Lockheed PV-1 Ventura G.R.V

 

 

For anybody who is interested in the history of FROG models I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

 

 

 

 

I have this too and the proposed future releases are of note, especially a 1/32nd Spitfire XIV ...they were always ahead of the game in many respects with their subject choices.

Despite many derogatory comments from some I believe FROG were pioneers, producing interesting kits back then and they more than satisfied my desire for FAA variants for many years 😊

 

Mike

[Space Ranger]

That is indeed like the box I saw.

[Rabbit Leader]

Slightly off topic but related none the less, it would appear that the new Airfix Beaufort has hit the Australian model shop shelves before reaching the UK. One member has commented that this is not the first occurrence of this rare event happening, a small shipment of Frog Ventura’s also arrived here first way back in 1977. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

[junglierating]

On 2/14/2021 at 8:46 PM, KevinK said:

 

There was a reason for Woolworth's only doing Airfix: there was an exclusive contract in place from the late '50s onward, under which Woolworth's had each new Airfix kit before other shops and Woolworth's sold only Airfix kits. Frog was in the corner shops, department stores, cycle shops, toy shops and of course, model shops.

 

 

 

You know, Adey, I think that - while it was a contributory factor - distribution wasn't the real killer, although it might have been inevitable a decade later when even Airfix failed. It was the "asset stripping" of the Rovex/Triang empire which resulted in Frog being sold off and disappearing into Novo.

 

I once had an interesting conversation with Mike Silk, the gentleman who ran Modeltoys in Portsmouth. It would have been in early 1981, when Airfix was in financial trouble and about to be absorbed into Palitoy. Mike was of the strong opinion that if Airfix would concentrate on their kit business, which was apparently profitable, and cease the ventures into plastic buckets, general toy production, etc, they could have survived independently. In the end, at least under Hornby, this is finally what happened.

Ah the late Milk Silk what a very patient man he was 

[KevinK]

1 hour ago, junglierating said:

Ah the late Milk Silk what a very patient man he was

 So very true: I described him as a gentleman - a word I rarely use - because that summed him up. It's a sign of his character how many people on this board remember him.

 

 

[Col Walter E Kurtz]

On 02/03/2017 at 20:06, adey m said:

A selection of FROG kits which I have found on the web to get the topic rolling.

 

I do have a number of FROG kits and boxes in my collection which I will show as we go on.

 

regards, Adrian

Brilliant thread . I absolutely loved the part where you could see from the school minibus  which kits had changed in the Post Office window. . This is such a nice back story. 

[Col Walter E Kurtz]

On 23/02/2021 at 02:25, Troy Smith said:

Green Shield kits

Argggghhhhh.. nostalgia overload! lol.. Got im himmel.. i think i was poisoned as a child by the glue from licking GSS and pasting them in to the redemption books. 0.001 p redemption value per stamp.. then they issued the single x 40 stamps. Pasting GSS in to the books was what people did in the 60's and 70's instead for entertainment  instead of watching catch up TV shows lol. \green Shield also offered a base model Ford Cortina in 1975.. colour.. GREEN of course! what else? LOL

 

Embassy the tobacco company had coupons in packets of fag. I remember you could also get a Ford Cortina  if you collected enough. You would kill yourself with lung cancer getting it though!

Edited March 5, 2021 by Col Walter E Kurtz

[Horatio Gruntfuttock]

2 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Slightly off topic but related none the less, it would appear that the new Airfix Beaufort has hit the Australian model shop shelves before reaching the UK. One member has commented that this is not the first occurrence of this rare event happening, a small shipment of Frog Ventura’s also arrived here first way back in 1977. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

And that is probably exactly (?) when I got mine in its plain card box. 

[Space Ranger]

4 hours ago, junglierating said:

Ah the late Milk Silk what a very patient man he was 

 

2 hours ago, KevinK said:

 So very true: I described him as a gentleman - a word I rarely use - because that summed him up. It's a sign of his character how many people on this board remember him.

That name is very familiar, but I have forgotten who/what he was associated with.

[KevinK]

 

28 minutes ago, Space Ranger said:

That name is very familiar, but I have forgotten who/what he was associated with.

 

Mike was the proprietor of Modeltoys, in Portsmouth.

 

Much more than just another model shop, Modeltoys (amongst other things) was the source of the long-running Modeldecal series, with Richard Ward as the principal researcher/artist. In the British market, these were the "go-to" for aftermarket, particularly for then-current Cold War British and NATO subjects. They set the standard at the time.

 

Mike had a lot of connections in the British model industry, and always knew what was going on. He was invariably courteous and helpful to modellers young and old.