| Airfix Products Ltd. | |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 3:35 pm | |
| I promised when I joined to do an Airfix page...here it is! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]There are plenty of histories of Airfix around so I won't bore you with one of those, but suffice to say, when they first moved from general household good into toys, they were pirates, copying from European flats and an American company called Beton (BErgaN TOy CompaNy). The mounted figure they copied included several fox-hunting figures, and while there was never a fox (to my knowledge) they did add two beagle poses at some point. The beagles were then joined with other breeds and sold with a little garden-kennel. There's more on the range on my blog here; [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Last edited by smallscaleworld on Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:19 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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SUSANNE Admin

Country/State : Denmark, the peninsula of Djursland. Age : 66 Joined : 2010-09-30 Posts : 32683
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 3:38 pm | |
| Beautyful doggies  Especially the two hounds have wonderful poses I never heard about Airfix before, so you surely wont bore ME with more info about the brand |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 3:44 pm | |
| Once they had started their - now famous - range of approximately 1:76th scale figure sets, they quickly realised that model railway enthusiasts were a major potential customer base (indeed the first set of these figures was issued as part of the model rail range, several years before the numbered sets started to appear, and it then didn't join the figure range for some time after), set 4, was the farm set; [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]I have covered these on my blog, and they can be found here; [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]The cream coloured ones are quite hard to locate being a late, small-run issue, and they were also sold as premiums, sellotaped to cartons of Dairylea cheese spread, in a little box.
Last edited by smallscaleworld on Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:03 pm | |
| The next sets to interest this forums members were sets 24 and 25, which were Zoo animals Set 1 and Zoo Animals Set 2 respectively. All sets were labelled HO-OO, for several decades, this is - of course - a meaningless term, as it refers to a model railway gauge! But it helped sell product to people modelling or war gaming in 1:90, 1:87, 1:76, 1:72 and the US 'HO'; 1:64th scale. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Contents of Set 1 with the full set, close-ups of one of each and the set still on the 'sprue' - actually the 'runners', the sprue is the cone-shaped piece attached to the injector-head which is usually removed in the factory. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Similar treatment of set two. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This brings like animals together from the two sets, and compares adults with babies, basically a pantograph-down in size, but with the deer/antelope, the horns were also removed, while the elephant is a proper baby sculpt, although looking a little 'Asian' for what is clearly an African adult! I have put these on the blog, but I haven't got round to adding text yet! [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Last edited by smallscaleworld on Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:23 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:14 pm | |
| Finally - in the 'HO-OO' series came a TV tie-in with the Tarzan franchise and while it only contained a few animals and they were mostly mould cavities from the previous zoo sets, there were several new sculpts. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The new poses were a leaping Lion, a chimpanzee (the Cheeta character) an actual cheetah and a new crocodile sculpt. HaT Industries reissued it a while ago in new colours. Again they are also on my blog; [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Again, I still haven't got round to adding text yet! I also just got a 503 alert, but it IS there, so persevere! |
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widukind

Country/State : Germany Age : 43 Joined : 2010-12-30 Posts : 29641
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:17 pm | |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:26 pm | |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:33 pm | |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 4:56 pm | |
| [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.][You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]This is the 1975 catalogue image of the Zoo play-set, which was supplied to me by Kostas, a Greek follower of my blog. |
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Ana

Country/State : come from Poland now live in The Netherlands Age : 31 Joined : 2010-04-01 Posts : 9872
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 13, 2014 6:04 pm | |
| Very very interesting! I like the crazy poses of some of them  Llama, elephant and giraffe look like in some kind of dance |
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mreyder

Country/State : Holland Age : 48 Joined : 2013-02-19 Posts : 139
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Mon Jul 14, 2014 11:18 pm | |
| i LOVE these old Zoo-enclosures! |
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Tiermann

Country/State : Oregon, USA Age : 52 Joined : 2012-01-03 Posts : 1034
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Mon Jul 14, 2014 11:19 pm | |
| Very interesting, I've been tempted by the Airfix sets from time to time but haven't gotten any. They are quite small. |
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Kikimalou Admin

Country/State : Lille, FRANCE Age : 54 Joined : 2010-04-01 Posts : 15162
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Tue Jul 15, 2014 3:54 am | |
| The Airfix boxes were very common in France in my youth, I used to play with them. Thank you for sharing this interesting topic |
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SUSANNE Admin

Country/State : Denmark, the peninsula of Djursland. Age : 66 Joined : 2010-09-30 Posts : 32683
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Tue Jul 15, 2014 8:47 am | |
| Thankyou for all the info !!! They are beautyful and very interesting |
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Chris Sweetman

Country/State : Nottinghamshire England Age : 62 Joined : 2012-04-10 Posts : 1034
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:46 pm | |
| - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] wrote:
- Thankyou for all the info !!!
They are beautyful and very interesting
Susanne An excellent book on Airfix’s history is “The Boy’s Book of Airfix”: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Also available in a book shop. Airfix also produced "Beta-Builder” a construction toy inspired by Lego! |
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Chris Sweetman

Country/State : Nottinghamshire England Age : 62 Joined : 2012-04-10 Posts : 1034
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:54 pm | |
| - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] wrote:
- Once they had started their - now famous - range of approximately 1:76th scale figure sets, they quickly realised that model railway enthusiasts were a major potential customer base (indeed the first set of these figures was issued as part of the model rail range, several years before the numbered sets started to appear, and it then didn't join the figure range for some time after), set 4, was the farm set;
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
I have covered these on my blog, and they can be found here;
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
The cream coloured ones are quite hard to locate being a late, small-run issue, and they were also sold as premiums, sellotaped to cartons of Dairylea cheese spread, in a little box.
Clearly inspired by Herald farm animals! I remember the Dairylea premiums and thought Britains had miniaturised their 1:32nd scale series as there was no indicator on the Dairylea packaging who made them. |
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Roger Admin

Country/State : Portugal Age : 44 Joined : 2010-08-20 Posts : 23588
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Thu Jul 17, 2014 12:19 am | |
| That's an excelent topic! A lot to know and a thread to keep as reference and to be revisited. Interesting that Nuno Mata, a Portuguese collector is following your blog. I read often his blog although he doesn't collect animal figures. |
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Chris Sweetman

Country/State : Nottinghamshire England Age : 62 Joined : 2012-04-10 Posts : 1034
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Jul 20, 2014 11:36 pm | |
| - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] wrote:
- I promised when I joined to do an Airfix page...here it is!
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
There are plenty of histories of Airfix around so I won't bore you with one of those, but suffice to say, when they first moved from general household good into toys, they were pirates, copying from European flats and an American company called Beton (BErgaN TOy CompaNy). The mounted figure they copied included several fox-hunting figures, and while there was never a fox (to my knowledge) they did add two beagle poses at some point. The beagles were then joined with other breeds and sold with a little garden-kennel.
There's more on the range on my blog here;
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
I have the beagle with the pose on the extreme right and a red setter. Both are in a reddish brown colour. |
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smallscaleworld

Country/State : Hampshire, UK Age : 54 Joined : 2014-01-04 Posts : 192
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:26 am | |
| - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] wrote:
I have the beagle with the pose on the extreme right and a red setter. Both are in a reddish brown colour.
Don't tell us, show us! |
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Chris Sweetman

Country/State : Nottinghamshire England Age : 62 Joined : 2012-04-10 Posts : 1034
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sat Aug 02, 2014 3:37 pm | |
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Chris Sweetman

Country/State : Nottinghamshire England Age : 62 Joined : 2012-04-10 Posts : 1034
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sat Aug 02, 2014 4:49 pm | |
| Two more Airfix plastic dog images. Here they are together: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], on Flickr Colour looks different from the previous two images because this shot was taken in shadow and the others in sunlight. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], on Flickr Close-up of underside of beagle clearly displaying the “MADE IN ENGLAND” inscription. |
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AlopexLagopus

Country/State : italy Age : 42 Joined : 2013-04-26 Posts : 387
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:43 pm | |
| I lile the "Who says you ever have to grow up?" |
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SUSANNE Admin

Country/State : Denmark, the peninsula of Djursland. Age : 66 Joined : 2010-09-30 Posts : 32683
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sat Aug 02, 2014 6:42 pm | |
| They are beautyful, Chris  |
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Chris Sweetman

Country/State : Nottinghamshire England Age : 62 Joined : 2012-04-10 Posts : 1034
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widukind

Country/State : Germany Age : 43 Joined : 2010-12-30 Posts : 29641
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Fri Aug 15, 2014 9:46 pm | |
| Very interesting and nice !! |
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Roger Admin

Country/State : Portugal Age : 44 Joined : 2010-08-20 Posts : 23588
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Wed Aug 20, 2014 2:58 am | |
| Very nice dogs and pictures, Chris! |
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WILLYBACOMAN

Country/State : Zwolle, The Netherlands Age : 56 Joined : 2010-03-30 Posts : 5968
 | Subject: Re: Airfix Products Ltd. Sun Dec 21, 2014 6:30 am | |
| As a matter of fact, i had the Airfix zoo-Set(yellow animals) for my 7th or 8th birthday, together with the Britains Zoo-cage set, and two later Corgi Toys animal-transporters, one with giraffes, that is what i remember. Later on i am sure i had those farm animals also. But i did not like them very much, as they had no colour on them. I didn't swap them, but i always kept them hidden somewhere in my collection back then. This was one of the animal transporters, the one with the giraffes, i think the green one was with horses or so. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]And this the Britains Zoo-Cage set. I have no decent pictures of the Airfix sets. |
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