Gowland & Gowland Golden Hind Shipyard Ships in Bottles
Plastic Model Kit, Box Condition: Exc
Rare, early, small scale ship kit from 1952. Very nicely detailed and molded for that time and includes a clear plastic 'bottle' for display inside. Features detailed hull, masts, sails, molded sea display base and clear sheet plastic with the delicately printed ratlines. Includes beautiful color instructions with the ship history, illustrations of assembly, how to set the sails and even rigging. The scale is not given, but the sea base measures 6.5"x2" and the ship is approximately 5 inches long. There is no assembly but NOTE: the hull is neatly painted red below the waterline. There is no other painting. Inventoried complete with all parts, bottle, cork and includes instructions. The box sides illustrates and names the 10 kits of this line. All were available in regular or 'Ship In A Bottle' (like this one) versions. The 'Bottle' was also available separately; it was cleverly molded so that the seam was exactly where a bottle seam was normally located back then and a cork stopper was included. The entire set consists of the Santa Maria 1492, Golden Hind 1588, Mayflower 1620, Bon Homme Richard 1779, SS Savannah 1819, The Flying Cloud 1849, Charles W. Morgan 1850, Gertrude L. Thebaud 1929, Frigate Constitution 1797 and US Revenue cutter 1849. It appears that Gowland & Gowland has not received the credit that it deserves in the plastic kit revolution that took America by storm in the early 1950s. Gowland developed the first all plastic car made in the USA in 1950, the 1911 Maxwell. Even more interesting is that Kevin and Jack Gowland developed the 'Highway Pioneers' in 1951 which heralded the future for the American Hobby Industry. The reason that Gowland's name is not in the fore-front of model history is that Precision Specialties (later Revell) did the distribution for Gowland.
This item has been sold.
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