In the 1950s, two US kit companies came up with the idea of making Big Game hunting trophy kits. These usually comprised stuffed and mounted animal heads, on a simulated wooden plaque, that you could hang on a wall.
Precision Plastics made four such kits, and Palmer Plastics made another six. Neither of these ranges appears to have lasted very long.
Most Palmer boxes only give the address as Brooklyn, New York. However, at the time the Trophy kits came out, it seems they were based at 155 Quincy St., Brooklyn, New York City.
They do seem to have moved around a good deal, but I do not know in what order the various addresses were used. Palmer Plastics were best known for their budget-priced car kits, but they also produced some more unusual subjects.
The Palmer trophy kits seem to date from the late 1950s, although I could not pin down an exact date. Scalemates say 1957; while a listing on Worthpoint for a Palmer sales brochure mentions 1959 - although no date is visible on the page.
Most of the Trophy kits initially sold for $1.00. All were clearly smaller than life-size, but no scale is mentioned on either the boxes or the instruction sheets.
The second kit in the series was the African Lion, kit number 22-100 (the suffix being the retail price). It was described as a 'Life-Like 3 Dimensional Model'.
The first three Palmer kits had 'Scout Award Trophies' on the box tops, and showed the other two kits - the Alaskan Timber Wolf and Kodiak Bear, on the side of the box. This seems to suggest a marketing tie-in of some sort with the Boy Scouts.
The last three kits in the series had 'Sportsmen Trophies' on the boxes. These were the Atlantic Sailfish, Shoveler Duck, and White Tail Deer.
The kits were later re-issued (1963 according to Scalemates), as Animals of the World, in smaller boxes with revised artwork. These boxes do not appear to refer to the models as hunting trophies, and the price was reduced to a uniform 49 cents, with the Lion being re-numbered 22-49.
The Lion was a 20-part kit, moulded in white plastic. There was also a mottled brown, or plain brown, shield-shaped plaque, with two mounting hooks.
As with most of these trophy kits, the head was a complex looking, multi-piece assembly. The painting instructions recommended either Pactra "Namel" or Testors "PLA" paints, and referred you to the illustration on the box as your painting guide, with no mention of what colours might be most suitable.
These kits do not appear to have been available since the 1960s, and Scalemates do not list any re-issues by other companies. There are only a few sales listings for the kits, with the early style boxes being the most common.
Ten photographs from Worthpoint
Paul Adams from New Zealand
I had the Atlantic Sail fish kit as a kid, it was my uncle's, I'm not sure if it was purchased in the UK or if my grandfather had bought it while he was at sea while he was in the Navy, I wish now I hadn't assembled it and painted it,, needless to say I didn't do it justice
ReplyDeleteMore fascinating plastic model history, Paul. It’s true what you’ve said before, in the first decade of the model kit industry, they tried just about every subject conceivable to attract the consumer. By the early 1960s, it became apparent that what sold best were planes, cars and ships. “Organic” subjects such as animals did not fare so well. I wonder if part of that was the difficulty of painting them to any sort of realistic appearance considering the crude paints available, and the young age of most modelers. I know I couldn’t have done a thing with an African Lion Head as a youth! Many planes and cars, on the other hand, were molded in the color of plastic they “should” be in, so lazy kids like me just painted the details (wheels, pilots, tires, etc.) But what a wonderland of imagination it was back then! SFZ
ReplyDeletePS: Also by the 1960s, many of the smaller companies like Palmer, Precision, Strombecker, Adams, etc., were overshadowed by the giants: Aurora, Revell, AMT, Monogram, and they were edged out of the business, or at least to the periphery of same. Me being a weirdo, I always had a fondness for the “off brands,” and would snap one up whenever I would find one. I’ve mentioned this before, but I had the Palmer American Mastadon kit at one point, and I cherished it. And I managed to hold on to a really old and weird kit, Premier’s Explorer Sailing Ship, which I would date from the mid-1950s. Talk about a crude kit! That one, I’m taking with me to the grave! SFZ
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I must confess to an error in the above article. The African Lion was kit number 21-100 and 21-49, not No.22 as I said. The number 21-100 is clearly visible on the box end, so how I managed that, I do not know. No.22 was the Kodiak Bear.
ReplyDeleteIt is really great to hear from those who actually had, and built, these kits. I have never seen one in the flesh, so I am only going from photographs.
It is amazing that SFZ has the Premier Explorer sailing ship - that is one of the kits I have been looking in to, but there is very little information on it. When I first saw the box top I thought it was a figure kit, as the figures in the foreground take up most of the box top - the sailing ship in the background, the subject of the kit - is tiny. Premier also did a kit of the Sea Hawk - Armed Pirate Sloop.
Please do a write-up on this obscure kit, it needs to be remembered, and its history recorded. Scalemates just say 1950s, with the kit number being 900-69, which would mean it originally sold for 69 cents. What colour is the instruction sheet printed in ? One of the few photographs I could find shows it in red.
Thanks for all the extra information.
Hi Paul! Just saw this comment. I will get out the Explorer and take pix. I’ve had this one since 1970! Could never talk myself into building it, it’s just too cool. I’m pretty sure the instruction sheet is on regular white paper. But an incredibly crude, toy-like kit. SFZ
DeleteGreat post! I had the Kodiak bear as a kid and I distinctly remember the brown shield and odd jigsaw puzzle construction of the off white plastic head. It was bought by my mother on one of our visits to Cherrey's model steam shop. Most of the stock was large scale live steam engines with a smattering of Airfix Oo-HO subjects. How the Palmer bear ended up there is a bit of a mystery. Job lot stock?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325725425573?itmmeta=01HQAZ50HDB8KHQTWFCFMQN261&hash=item4bd6bf8fa5:g:ZOEAAOSwM1Fkqw6V&itmprp=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8J3P%2BuBL3sPFDxtiZPA8Dr847VEz0XtJUP7jNa8VdGLwLUTLtIEbnuDKFstPyHNIbtK7tPQJrp5MQLK1WAUkDHgKHqnhfWUZZiDj0Kp1oYMeua3mGxpeDvyjxkvkwHc%2FcXVs7iydppkc9s8IWhLzNVyyfEKWdvFXwMefrfQcBmEgcx5aLd9uN7h6gPdTwaju3brpE24gLnvj0Urb4uMNIvp48G0NQ16tjNTjvNXynz8oGxKWJ2YdZBk97hPNd%2F5BVwfCNx8a%2FfUo75Ft72vndYn54oIN0QjRYRkvqnU3QlQxTDXPi6XC%2BbdaVD3GQL7%2F3Q%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR-KIlN-6Yw this is on ebay now, its a kodiak bear!!!
ReplyDelete£105? No thanks!
DeleteGreat article Paul.
ReplyDelete