Introduction

In 2004 I bought the Junkers Ju-52 kit from Busch Plastic and  the ready built model of the F-84. I openened a page on this site in 2005 showing pictures of these kits but did not care much about the Busch brand until I came upon a thread in the Airfixcollecting forum [1]  which inspired me to start a research about this brand.

History

The German company Busch+Co KG produced a series of plastic kits and built-up aircraft from 1958 to the early 1960's under the label BUSCH Plastic. Scale was nominally 1:175

The company was founded in 1955  with the purpose to produce pyrotechnic articles and fuses. In 1957 the production equipment was sold and BUSCH ventured in the production of plastic injetced parts. Working as a component supplier for industry was not succesful so BUSCH decided to go it alone with the production of toys. A series of plastic aircraft models was launched in 1958 with the Messerschmitt Me 109. In 1959 seven models were available.[2]. The 1960 catalogue presented 13 models as isted below.

Production ended in 1962 and the moulds were sold to Lindberg which reissued the kits in 1962 or 1963 [3].  Lindberg stopped producing these kits at the end of the 1960's and they were produced and distributed by Necomisa  under the Pgeaso label in the 1970's.

According to an ad in a 1958 issue of Flying Review magazine Model Toys London Ltd. licence produced the Busch aircraft models, too. I have no information how long this connection lasted but certainly no longer than the date when Lindberg took over production.

Busch concentrated on the producton model railways accecoires, which were first introduced in 1960 [5]. Today Busch is one of he leading producers such items. [6]



Picture 4: Comparison of Boxes. From upper right to lower left
Busch F-100, Lindberg F-100 & X-15, Necomisa / Pegaso Bucker Jungmeister. The Lindberg kits were packed in pairs. ©cjk 

List of Busch Aircaft Models and Kits.

Busch issued 3 variants of their aircraft: Built-up models, which came in red boxes,  semi built-up kits, which came in yellow boxes and  kits proper, which came in green flat boxes (see pictures right).

These are the aircraft kits listed in the Busch 1960 catalogue [4]: