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Balsawood Jeep Kit from MODEL CRAFT

• CATEGORIES: Features, Models, toys This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

This is a picture of a boxed balsawood jeep kit held by the Australian War Memorial.  The information below comes from the website.

Description: Boxed balsawood kit of a Jeep. Box obverse is illustrated in two colours with a PT boat and a jeep with the legend ‘MODEL CRAFT’. The sides are illustrated with patrol craft and trucks, accompanied by the legend ‘Manufactured by Model Aircrafts 1 Bond St Sydney’. Reverse is printed in red and blue with a listing of the other model kits available. Contents consist of a thin printed balsa sheet and smaller plain sheet and six long stringers, all wrapped in the plans for the kit. The instructions are damaged.

Summary: Little is known of Model Aircrafts Ltd. A Sydney-based company established in 1928 and operating from premises at 1 Bond St, Sydney, they manufactured a series of boxed balsawood aircraft, truck and ship kits. The evidence of their production is based on their wartime output, which is imaginative and extensive – and includes contemporary subjects such as the Mitsubishi Zero and the Hawker Hurricane – but extremely basic and evidently restricted by Australia’s wartime austerity drive and materials rationing. Thus, wartime contents for aircraft frequently provide merely a simple block of balsa and a 2.5 cm square of sandpaper with instructions to ‘shape fuselage according to the illustration’. Wartime plans are often signed ‘J Mercer’.

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One comment on “Balsawood Jeep Kit from MODEL CRAFT

  1. SE Pennsylvania Steve

    I’ve read that since there were shortages of materials during WW2 there were a lot of wooden toys available. This certainly falls under that catagory.
    Imagine how a young kid today would react if he only got something like this for a present…

    Reply

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