An Aviation Enthusiast´s Kit Collection Home How it All Began Plastic Kits 50´s & 60´s Plastic Kits 1970 up Various Topics Books 50´s & 60´s Contact           back to Revell Revell Germany Catalog 1959 My Nostalgic Look at Plastic Kits from the 50´s and 60´s  embraces a lot of different brands. All these kits from different manufacturers are arousing fond memories. Every single brand has a positive but specific meaning meaining for me. Regarding Revell it was the 1959 catalog of Revell Germany which never got out of my mind for 40 years even before I started collecting kits in 2003. Browsing this catalogue ever and ever again as a ten or eleven year old boy has been one of the key experiences shaping my interest in aviation. I did not have much kits from this catalog though, the XSL-01 manned spaceship, the Nautilus submarine , the USS Essex aircraft carrier and the Bounty historical ship. Not even an aircraft ! In the German 1959 catalog the kits were arranged in a consistent list format, (see picture below) , depicted with a black & white drawing and  with a comprehensive caption. One could consider it as my first aircraft type reference book and together with the SIKU aircraft models and some later books this catalogue had a strong influence on my aviation hobby and in my youth and  layed the foundation of becoming a fanatic aircraft type collector. I was very fond of the missiles and was interested in the ships, too. What makes collecting REVELL kits so special for me is that I now get step by step all the kits I only have known from this catalog. The imaginative black&white drawings transform into superb boxarts in glossy color. Revell Germany Catalog 1959 Pictures and text were highly stimulating for my imagination. It feels sweet like sugar reading and remembering sentences like quoted below. Speaking of the Lockeed F-104 Starfighter H-251 : "Its wing edges are so sharp they must be covered with felt to protect ground crews while they work". or speaking of the Moore McCormack S.S. Brazil, H-346, "The first ship model to feature outside stabilizers" Though the texts generally seem rather inaccurate and naive judged from my present level of knowledge they convey a typical atmosphere of how technology has been described and seen in the 50´s. Highly collectible for me. The text quoted above are not ranslations from the German text but taken from the  USA 1957-58 catalog, which had a similar layout. I did not have this issue in my youth But I remember to have had the US 1958-59 catalog.   I did not understand  the English text then. Nontheless I remember it for displaying the kits as assembled and some of them in a queer postion which I did not really grasp, then, too. Flying boats rested in a banked position on the ground. Some of the models rested on the tail, extremely the Fairchild F-27   Click picture for higher resolution.           back to Revell Home How it All Began Plastic Kits 50´s & 60´s Plastic Kits 1970 up Various Topics Books 50´s & 60´s Contact Started: 11.01.2005 Revised:  24.11.2013 / April 2016 Author: cjk  © cjk