Ruch

Introduction

I came across the kits from the Polish manfacturer RUCH,  on my research on kits from PZW a Polish manufacturer as well. I started to aquire kits in various packing styles see  pictures in My Collection. At first view it  seemed that all these kits came from the same maker. But soon it turned out  that I had to concern with two Polish companies:

Podlaskie Zaklady Wytworcze  (PZW) located in Siedlce and
  
Zaklady Przemyslowe "Ruch" located in Kobylka which will be dealt with here. I will use the acronym RUCH in the following.

You will find more details of the background which lead me  to create this RUCH page in my introduction to PZW kits.

History

The following is an abstract of the statements from the Polish website Seria Miniatur RUCH 1:72  [1].  This site deals mainly with the plastic model cars issued by RUCH and PZW but it provides useful general information about the two companies whereby the aircraft kits are mentioned, too. I incorporate clarifications by an e-mail contact with the author, statements from the history page of RUCH S.A. [2], and some own considerations.

The story starts in December 17, 1918 when the well-known booksellers Jan Gebethner and Jakub Mortkowicz founded the company Polskie Towarzystwo Ksiegarni Kolejowych RUCH. That translates literally to Polish Company of Railway Station Bookshops RUCH. Ruch is an artificial name and no surname used as honor name of an cooperative what I supposed at first. It may be translated with "movement" or "traffic". The enterprise had the then modern structure of a tobacconist shop, which offered newspapers, tobacco and other small articles. It was an innovative and trendsetting company which grow to one of the largest enterprises in Poland which still flourishes today as RUCH S.A.[3].

In the early 1960's besides publishing and selling press media and books RUCH also engaged in the production of toys in their so called auxilliary factories. Plastic kit production was started by Przedsiebiorstwo produkcji pomocniczej "RUCH" in Warshaw (=Auxilliary Factory RUCH“ ) which is confirmed by the lettering of the header card of a S-55 helicopter (see picture 1, right). But I have seen only one example of this package style up to now. Later production was taken over by Zaklady Przemyslowe "Ruch" in the town of Kobylka near Warshaw (= Industrial Works Ruch). This company address can be found on all issues of the kits I have in my collection (examples see pictures right).

According to the author of Seria Miniatur, the factory in Kobylka was mainly known for the production of model kits of aircraft and a series of model cars trucks and busses in 1:72 scale the Serii Miniatur. The aircraft kits I can confirm are: Mig.15, Sikorsky S-55, Fairey Rotodyne, the Bristol Bloodhound Missile and, the HMS Cossack destroyer, which were copies of Airfix kits and TS-11 Iskra, PZL-23 Karas, and PZL P-11C, which obviously were own designs. All aircraft kits are in 1:72 scale.

The production of plastic kits and car models has been abandoned suddenly in 1972. The factory Zaklady Przemyslowe "RUCH" changed its production profile and started to produce telecommunications systems. The factory was renamed to Zaklady Przemyslowe Telkom. The moulds and machinery for the manufacturing of kits were probably stored in a depot for two years.

The production of the kits and car models was taken over by the manufacturer Podlaskie Zaklady Wytworcze in the town Siedlce (acronym is PZW) which was already engaged in the manufacturing of toys since the 1950's.  There is no connection with RUCH anymore which concentrated on their original field of publishing and selling printed media. They had been reorganized in the meantime into the cooperative Zjednoczenie Upowszechniania Prasy i Ksiazki RUCH (=Union for Promotion of Press and Books Ruch). The kits from PZW which  expanded the line of aircraft kits are dealt with in a separate page.

PZW shut down in 2008.  Possibly moulds have been taken over by ZTS, Mastercraft and later Mistercraft which may have continued to issue their kits under their own labels. So some of the original RUCH kits may still have survived until now. But that is another story which still has to be researched.

Product Range and Packaging Styles

In My Collection I list all RUCH kits I have in my collection complemented by some third party pictures. This may serve as an overview of the product range of RUCH without beeing complete.

For my own use I added kits from PZW and ZTS to have a survey for searching missing kits in my collection.

Ruch used either just "RUCH" or ZP RUCH as a logo and used either bags or boxes for packing their kits. For a comprehensive review of the packing styles see my subpage RUCH Packing Styles.