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| Weekly Herald profiled in RMC June '61 |
As far as I can tell it looks like the first mention of the kit is in an April '61 article by Hal Carstens about the goings on at the 1961 Hobby Industry Association Trade Show held in February at the Hotel Sherman in Chicago. In the paragraph about news from Revell he notes, Revell has taken four of its old structure kits and revamped then to come up with five new items. .... the engine house is optionally a bakery or printing plant....
The May and June '61 issues contain reports on what was new at the American Toy Fair and the International Toy Fair held later in New York. The Weekly Herald gets a mention, and a large photo of the box art, in the June '61 issue. The caption notes, Revell took its engine house, converted it into an old brick factory housing a printing plant. Structure is also offered in a bakery kit.
I also looked through ads to see when the kit was first offered for sale by a retailer. It looks like the first ad was from AHC that appeared in the Nov '61 issue. It offered the Operating Engine House, the Weekly Herald, and the Superior Bakery, for $3.98 US each. An online inflation calculator tells me that's equivalent to $34.60 US in 2020 dollars. I paid $35.00 US for my kit on eBay, although my version is an AHM boxing from the '70s. I should also note that according to the ad, these three were the most expensive of all the Revell structure kits being offered.
I remember the enginehouse kit was fawned over because some great model builder had done such a great job sculpturing its detail. No doubt that's what made it a classic. Just can't remember who it was...
ReplyDeleteIt was designed by Al Armitage. I wrote a little about it, and it's offspring, here: https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2020/08/git-yer-papers-here.html
DeleteI'd say that for its time - it was released in 1959 - it was a big step forward in terms of detail. But, it still had a foot in the toy train market, what with the operating doors and such.