The Little World

And how would one ever find out?

I have been amazed at the number of firms that make plastic scale model kits. I knew of perhaps eight when I was a kid – and some of them have long disappeared – but they have been replaced in the shops with what may be hundreds more. And that may not be just idle exaggeration – the number of small producers of kits and accessories is growing. This in a hobby that is said to be dying…

So how many makers are there right now? Lots of countries make scale models and many of them are tiny firms. How many more in the past existed?

Don’t try to escape – the next questions are worse. How many of any one kit did Airfrog or Monovell make when you were a kid buying them? What was the annual and overall total of Spitfires during this time? I’m willing to bet it was far more than the Air Ministry could ever own.

And now the big one. how many scale models kits have been built since WW2 altogether? Factory records, tax office records, import and export figures…the number may never be accurately known. In fact there is only one thing of which we can be absolutely certain:

Someone, somewhere, has one of each in his stash…