1/12 Berkeley Cessna L-19 Bird Dog - 36 Inch Wingspan For Free-Flight Gas or Rubber or Control Line
Wood Model Kit, Box Condition: Good++
Big 1/12 scale model with a 36 inch wingspan. Originally designed as a gas powered model for free flight or control line, or can be converted to electric power and modern RC (radio control. Features diecut balsa and plywood parts, balsa blocks cut to rough shape, diecut celluloid windshields, cloth hinges, rubber wheels, shaped and notched trailing edges, three big sheets of full color fuel proof decals, formed wire main and tail landing gear, metal stock and a giant plan sheet with instructions. The kit has never been started. It has been inventoried complete with all the parts listed but NOTE: missing small hardware packet. Otherwise complete. Berkeley is a very famous manufacturer of flying model kits from the Golden Age of flying aviation, about 1932-1954. Founded in 1933 by William Effinger, the company was quite progressive in producing quality kits - it was likely the Berkeley 'Buccaneer' was the first gas powered model in kit form. In the later 1930s, Effinger acquired the services of a very talented Henry Struck. Struck went on to design numerous award-winning kits under the Berkeley name. Berkeley weathered the post WWII recession and emerged as a major kit producer in the late 1940 and 1950s. These were great years for Berkeley and they produced some incredible and large kits. The company went bankrupt in about 1960 however. Fox engines (Duke Fox) bought the company and released the kits alongside his own FOX models and engines. This arrangement did not last, and in the early 1960s the Berkeley name disappeared from hobby shop shelves.
This item has been sold.
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