H-1 Monogram Speedee Bilt North American B-25 Mitchell Wood and Plastic Kit
Wood and Plastic Model Kit, Box Condition: Fair++
Rare early Monogram kit from the early 1950s. Fantastically well detailed and presented multi-media kit with 34 injection molded clear, red, black and gray acetate and 57 die cut or shaped balsa parts including the famous Monofoil pre-formed wing. This example has never been started and is inventoried 100% complete with all parts, glue, dope, decals, sand paper, plans and instruction book. Still has internal packing as shown. Printed balsa parts were falling from the sheet, so I taped them together on the original sheet with clear tape. NOTE: the box looks VG but is graded only fair due to the fact that it is missing the bottom long side. Decals have damage as shown. This is the first large-scale non-flying scale Speedee-Bilt model, the B-25 Mitchell. Before there were plastic models, there were wooden aircraft kits. These usually came in two types - solid and stick and tissue. The solid models were static and usually contained a few blocks of balsa and sometimes a detail part or two. These "Make Wood Look Like Plane" models required a very high level of skill in carving and finishing. The stick and tissue variety were slightly easier to build and provided the ultimate thrill - they could fly when complete with rubber power (and later with free-flight gas and eventually RC). They still required a great deal of skill, so manufacturers sought ways to make model building more accessible to everyone. One idea was pre-carving and/or prefabrication. This raised prices, naturally. Many manufacturers launched lines of 'easy' to build flying models but only Monogram succeeded in making an entire line at an affordable price that would actual fly. Monogram, however, wanted to make true scale models that could still be assembled easily. So they created the four large and highly detailed non-flying scale Speedee-Bilt bombers - the B-25, B-26, B-24 and B-17. The kits were a tremendous success and sold well in the early to mid 1950s.
This item has been sold.
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