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Hasegawa/ Minicraft F-4J


whiskey

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Just trying to get my information straight on this one.

 

The 1/48 Hasegawa/Minicraft F-4J, kit #1216, is still the exact same Hasegawa F-4J with raised panel lines correct? I ask because when I try to find anything all I get is resources for the kits labeled ONLY Hasegawa. If I recall it is still a very viable F-4 build yes?

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Anything marked Hasegawa/Minicraft would be pretty old stuff, as Minicraft used to rebrand Hasegawa kits for sale in the US in the '70s and '80s. #1216 is most likely one of the early Hasegawa F-4Js sold in the States, that featured a VF-84 Phantom in the box art (the other decal option was for VMF-451).

Of course the kit would be the original Hasegawa F-4J with raised panel lines that you have in mind. I have the B variant of the same kit in the stash and to be honest I still find it a nice kit. The Academy offering is superior in probably every way but if you can get this one cheap and are happy with raised panel lines (or don't mind rescribing), you'd still get a good 1/48 Phantom. The risk with a kit of that vintage is that the decals may have become unuseable, something I found with a different Hasegawa kit I'm building.

Different story if you have to enter a bid war or similar, in that case I'd probably just buy an Academy kit from a Korean shop, some of them have very good prices

Edited by Giorgio N
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Thanks Giorgio, that would be the kit. The one with the VF-84 bird in final approach to the deck. Just wanted to confirm it was actually that mold and not some early knockoff.

 

I have several Academy offerings, as well as Z-M, Revell, Esci/Italeri etc. Just was looking at this one for a good price so I asked.

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1 hour ago, Jordi said:

I don’t think any of the Hasegawa 1/48 F-4 kits ever appeared in a Minicraft/Hasegawa box.  Scalemates (the go-to source on this kind of information) doesn’t list a kit number 1216 for either company.

 

hasegawa-minicraft-48-4j-phantom-ii_1_b3

 

Scroll down to the table and look at the first entry.

https://modelingmadness.com/splfeat/kr/has48d.htm

 

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Would have to check, but I think both the raised and recessed detail kits were discussed in D&S 7 and 12, and am fairly certain they were still distributed by Minicraft.

 Is that typo in the designation Minicraft-specific?

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Ah yeah, that. After originally posting here and doing some further digging, I believe the typo can only be contributed to Minicraft. Once the same kit was boxed solely as Hasegawa it was corrected.

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On 5/17/2019 at 7:43 AM, tempestfan said:

Would have to check, but I think both the raised and recessed detail kits were discussed in D&S 7 and 12, and am fairly certain they were still distributed by Minicraft.

 Is that typo in the designation Minicraft-specific?

 

The B and J were reviewed in D&S 12, dedicated to the USN variants. The kit was brand new back then and still distributed by Minicraft. The year was 1983...

The volumes on the E (D&S 7) and the one on the C/D did not feature the Hasegawa kits as they had not been released yet. They discuss the 1/48 Monogram, Esci and Testors kits.

It is interesting that with perhaps the exception of the Testors/Italeri kit, I still rate the others as overall buildable kits and I have one of each in the stash (Esci J and Monogram C). Phantom modellers were quite well served in those years !

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I've got quite a few Monogram and ESCI short nose F-4s still. When you're wanting to do them in numbers, costs count. Plus I've read great things about both of the kits and have seen truly spectacular results of finished builds. Modellers can make them look just as good if not better than Z-M, Academy, and Hasegawa kits. I do have a few of the ESCI E's on my wait list of purchases as I've seen amazing finishes on those as well.

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