Crook!

[BillParker]

Old Model Airplane Kits and the eBay Market

If you're one of those gray-templed would-be aviators who remembers finding a model airplane kit under the tree on Christmas morning when you were a kid and wonder what's happened to it, just check out eBay some night. Be ready for a surprise.

They're back, and their prices are soaring. Maybe not soaring for the basic Comet and Guillow kits, those simple stick and tissue jobs that were sold for under a buck and were made in vast quantities, but for those deluxe kits that came with bags of accessories, the super scale, heavily detailed, and expensive multi-engine jobs, the sky's the limit. A very good clue to current prices is that if it was expensive when it first sold, it's more expensive now.

There aren't any truly antique model airplane kits available. Although enthusiasts were powering model planes with manufactured engines that look remarkably modern as early as 1911, and kits were available from at least two sources in 1910, none are in circulation at this time. The earliest model airplane kit seen offered on eBay was made in 1932.

First, for those readers who never enjoyed the heady fumes of airplane dope, who never had to explain why there were Band-Aids on all ten fingers, or who never enjoyed the sensation of starting an unmuffled gas engine in an upstairs apartment at seven on a Sunday morning, here is a short primer in model airplanes.

There are display or static models, formerly of wood and metal and later of plastic, and then there's everything else. Display models are popular, but we're concerned with the big boys' toys, flying models (even if they don't fly). Flying models were powered by wound rubber band motors at first. Later they were powered by gas engines, which came in two types: ignition engines with coils, condensers, and spark plugs; and the later (mostly after 1949) gas engines with glow plugs, which needed none of the ignition parts. Rubber-powered model planes are still very popular with older collectors, but the vast majority of current backyard fliers enjoy extremely lightweight electric planes controlled by subminiature radio equipment.

Flying model airplane kits can be divided into two categories: those made from built-up parts, and those bought ready to fly or almost ready to fly, partially or fully assembled.

Built-up kits came with plans on which the builder placed balsa wing ribs and fuselage formers, added other pieces, and joined them together with glue, then covered the whole thing with paper and/or a balsa skin. Some kits substituted solid pieces for some components. The plane was painted with "dope," eventually superseded by iron-on plastic film coverings.

Some models are of real airplanes (called scale models). Others are just meant to fly. Cox, Testor's, Wen-Mac, and other plastic ready-to-fly planes came almost fully assembled. Those planes were often sold by toy stores, whereas the built-ups usually were available only from hobby shops.

All kinds of kits and power plants can be found on eBay today. It doesn't take much searching to discover that there were scores of model airplane kit manufacturers in business 50 years ago.

Among that number were some legendary makers, such as Cleveland Model and Supply Company, which began selling kits full time in 1927 and only ceased production in 1968. Cleveland still sells the plans but no kits. Cleveland kits are revered for their attention to scale. Some of its kits have amazing detailing. Some models had wing ribs spaced as close as <$E 1/2><146> apart.

Cleveland kits can be difficult to date. Plans and printwood usually carry dates from the first year of manufacture and will almost always be found in newer boxes. Because Cleveland kits were sold in such large numbers, a sidebar is devoted to them.

Another veteran kit maker was Berkeley Models, Inc. From the mid-1930's right through to the mid-1950's, Berkeley put out great scale flying kits. The later kits had die-cut sheets of parts, stamped aluminum nose cones, and prebent wire landing gear. By the time Berkeley folded, it had kits available in every class and style.

Many of the more expensive kits contained rubber wheels, although turned balsa wheels were the rule. Some, such as Cleveland and Ideal, provided the liquids needed for completion of the plane.

The hottest sellers today on eBay are kits of Golden Age (between the First and Second World Wars) racers, multi-engine planes, seaplanes, big biplanes, metal planes, and models of unusual airplanes.

One of the leading lights in the on-line auction model business is Curtis Mattikow of New York City, who sells under the eBay name of "easytiger." Mattikow has been selling models, kits, accessories, and everything else connected with model building on eBay since 1994. Mattikow estimates he's sold at least 12,000 model-related items on eBay.

Mattikow advertises that he's the "king of vintage balsa." It's tough to argue that he isn't. He has at all times between ten and 22 pages up for bid on eBay, with 25 lots per page. That means a minimum of 250 lots offered with about 20 lots closing per day.

To service that many sales, buyers must comply with certain conditions: "You must pay with a money order and include your address and the item description. Not the item number. That's all! Not very tough, but very important. I send a very complete form letter at the end of the auction that makes things very easy for you. If you do not provide an address and the full item description, I cannot ship your item out."

Mattikow offers large lots of old stock in as-new condition so frequently that many of his descriptions include these phrases: "All are dead mint new old stock from the '40's, from deep inside my underground vaults beneath the streets of Gotham. You don't see stuff like this very often at all, so grab what you can while you can."

We reached Mattikow on his mobile phone as he was on his way to a warehouse at an airport outside the city, where he stores some of his inventory. The model selling, as intensive as it is, is not his only business. He's involved in the entertainment industry. He still finds time to build and fly model airplanes and, like all collectors, rues the one that got away.

Where does he get his inventory?

"I buy up warehouses. I do a lot of detective work to find where the stuff is and buy large, in quantity. It's getting harder and harder to find the stuff, but it's out there. It's all in the detective work. You have to find out what happened to old distributors and where the old stuff went. You look through a fifty-year-old magazine. You'll find advertisements from thirty to forty major hobby distributors around the country and hundreds of hobby shops. Sometimes the stuff went into a Dumpster. Sometimes it's sitting in a barn."

How does Curtis Mattikow handle the volume he sells?

"Well, I have it as automated as it possibly can be, but what can't be automated is that somebody still has to write the description. If there's any secret to success, it's writing the description. Selling stuff and shipping the stuff out, there's still no real automated way to do that."

Here's the description Mattikow used for a 1943 Ideal kit of a Grumman Avenger: "Dead mint, down to the paper used to pack it being original. The Ideal kits were probably the best out there, a step up from Cleveland, including full working controls that go from the stick in the cockpit to the tail surfaces. And the kits were much more deluxe than Cleveland, including special detail sets and such. Full liquids, too. Anyway...it's about as spectacular a balsa scale model as was ever made, a real no-holds-barred presentation. 41 inches span."

It is any wonder that kit brought $132.54?

We asked Mattikow if he had any hard and fixed rule for selling kits.

"It has to be complete, period. Incomplete kits are worth less than half of a complete one, unless it's super rare. I basically don't sell incomplete kits, unless it's something very rare or I think somebody might actually want to build it. I don't restore kits either. If something is missing, I leave it missing. You never know how accurate you're being, and I don't want to have to explain the replacement piece.

"Some of the worst eBay deals I've ever had came from trying to sell [assembled] built-up airplanes. Now it's a rule with me: don't sell built-up planes. By the time you're finished packing it and boxing it up, trying to get it to the buyer safely, you've lost your shirt. It isn't worth it.

"I shipped a Bob Violett [model of a] Piper jet to Taipan, and by the time it was all said and done, it cost the guy six hundred dollars to get it there. For all the time it took, me taking it to FedEx and everything, I wished I had taken it to a swap meet and sold it for less."

What's hot right now, in the winter of 2003-4?

"The stick and tissue kits from the 1940's, stuff from the '50's of all descriptions. The 1950's are really hot now. The Scientific control-line kits are super hot, the carved log models. A good one can fetch up to two hundred bucks."

The Scientific Model Airplane Company control-line fliers were sold with rudimentary lathe-turned machine-carved solid balsa fuselages, which modelers called logs, for prices ranging from $1.95 to $2.50 during the 1950's and early 1960's. The buyer supplied the engine.

Another hot seller is the category of ready-to-fly plastic kits.

"Those planes were distributed on a much wider basis. They were sold in toy stores as toys," Mattikow said. "With a lot of them, kids got them, fueled them once, and couldn't get them to start and never flew them. Then there are the ones given as presents by Uncle Harry or another relative, and when the mothers saw them, they said, `I'm not having my son near that propeller.'"

Mattikow said that lawsuits drove more than one manufacturer out of business. He told this story from They Should Have Kept the Bear. The book was written by the grandson of the founder of the OK Engine Co., one of the companies offering models ready to fly, whose logo was a bear cub. "One of the manufacturers got sued by a lady, and they gave up the case immediately. The complete letter she wrote them was written in her son's blood. He had lopped off a finger. They knew they didn't stand a chance, and they folded."

Really good examples of those plastic planes are selling for startling prices. An Aurora P-47 in the original cardboard printed hangar box sold in early December for $456.77.

"A Wen Mac P-38 can bring twelve hundred dollars, and a good Cox plane, six hundred dollars," Mattikow said, "and if you have a mint box, you can double the cost for some planes. The buyers of those plastic planes are different buyers entirely. They're toy collectors really. It's a much more competitive field with much angrier buyers. It really is a different crowd."

What's the most Mattikow has got for a model kit?

"I think it was around sixteen hundred dollars for a Sterling boat kit. For airplanes, probably around seven hundred dollars for a Eureka B-36. I've had others go near that: a Berkeley Privateer and a Cleveland Stinson Reliant that went for six hundred dollars.

"Cleveland kits usually bring between two and three hundred dollars, but sometimes an eBay bidder will jump on one and away it goes. The Cleveland stuff is more than just kits. It's all the artwork that goes with them.

"Then there's the Ideal kits. They were everything the Cleveland was and then some, with just beautifully built kits. They really don't come up that often. And there's the Eureka kits. I got around seven hundred dollars for a big B-36, a big control-line job from the 1950's. They were big multi-engined Japanese kits."

Eureka Enterprises, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, put out some amazingly detailed kits in cooperation with a Japanese manufacturer, but they were very expensive. The B-36 kit Mattikow referred to cost $89.50 in 1957, the equivalent of $573 in 2002. A Eureka model of a Super Constellation airliner sold for $710 in late November 2003.

Mattikow said he seems to be dealing with people who know exactly what they are bidding on. That's good, because he still builds and flies models, and he obviously knows what he's selling.

"It's kind of rare to find somebody who doesn't know what they're getting, but every once in a while I will have someone who buys a solid model kit from the 1940's who will come back to me and say, `Hey, this doesn't come with a radio!' I don't hassle them. I just give their money back."

While Curtis Mattikow is as close as the industry has to being a full-time dealer in models, the majority of the models found on eBay come from the small dealers and from those selling the collections of others.

One of the latter is Glen Moss of northern Illinois. He was using the eBay name of "glenrmoss@hotmail.com" through December but has since changed to "clland." Moss is a teacher, soon to be retired, who has augmented his income by selling various material.

"It's funny, but I've done very well selling high school yearbooks," Moss said. "A number of people who later became famous went to school in the Midwest. You hit the yard sales, and often the yearbooks show up. I've had an Ann Margaret that brought five hundred dollars from a collector in Ireland, of all places. Rock Hudson also shows up around here. I've got between two and three hundred dollars for his high school yearbook."

Moss said in early December, "Beginning around three to four months ago, I started selling model airplane kits for a man, a contractor who inherited his dad's collection of model airplane stuff and automobile material."

Moss revealed that he made a mistake when he first began selling the kits. "I put up some Cleveland kits, and, boy, they sold immediately. One of them was a Mystery Ship, which sold for twenty-five dollars, I think. I learned not to do that again. I try to describe the kits really well too.

"I've sold a number of high-dollar Cleveland kits," Moss said. "Four of them went to a buyer in New Zealand. Another went to Australia. I think there's worldwide renewed interest in the age of flight, especially in the classic early planes, the air racers and such."

Glen Moss had several big-buck sales in November and December. There was a $710 Eureka Super Constellation airliner ("I knew that was going to go as soon as one bidder called me and tried to get me to pull it and sell it to him privately"); a $1510 toy metal black-painted 1953 Cadillac with box; and a $305 Japanese model plane jet engine and the $400.90 aluminum MIG-15 jet fighter model to put it in.

"Most of the people bidding on the airplane kits seem to know what they're bidding on. I think many are retired and can afford the airplanes they either had or wanted as kids. They're at the place in their life when they can afford those things now," Moss said.

Mattikow and Moss agreed that most early model airplane kits are still reasonably priced. "You get the whole package, the box it came in, the highly visual plans, all the parts to build it, and you have to ask, how many remain?" said Glen Moss. "If you consider their age and the fragile nature of balsa and paper and compare them to other period toys, they seem like good buys to me."

[dbcisco]

Nothiing different from what all classic car and antique dealers do.

[earlhouse]

Bill Parker, did you ever find plans for the B29? I finally got one still sealed in box off E-Bay after trying for a few months. I think I gave too much $162 dollars but have not managed to get one cheaper.

I am going to build this one, so if you don't have the plans, I can let you have a copy.

Earl D. House

[BillParker]

Mr. House:

You are a gentleman and a scholar!

Tell me how I can help you get me copies of the B-29 plans!

Let's see... 54" times 3... hummmmm....

[BillParker]

Was just goofing around this weekend, more than anything, and found this on E-Bay:

Item name: Guillow's DeHavilland Mosquito Mk-IV
Sale price: $137.61
Your maximum bid: $60.00

So, I set up a max bid of 60 bucks thinking "surely..."

I mean seriously? It went for over twice my bid, plus shipping. Is it possible that our buddies at the factory are missing the boat a bit here? I realize that minimum runs for a kit are probably a gruntload of kits, but they could put whatever price tag they want on em, and sell em on EBay fer ****sake...

Heck, all I wanted was the plans. Gonna have to scratch build the danged thing, just like the B-29, as I can't get that thing either...

bp

[SteveM]

The Mossy can be had for as low as $40-60 if you wait patiently for a year or two. The Mossy plans can also be obtained from the AMA for something like $9 or so.

[dbcisco]

Considering a B17 currently lists for almost $100, $150 for a discontinued model isn't too bad. You can get the plans from AMA for $9 and cut your own wood which, considering the age of some of the kits on ebay, is going to be needed anyway. Remember too that many people collect the kits as nostalgia items and nevr even open the box. Antiques collectors always seem to have way too much money.