'Model Aircrafts' balsawood kit : Hawker Hurricane

Place Oceania: Australia
Accession Number REL33327
Collection type Heraldry
Object type Heraldry
Physical description Balsa wood, Cardboard, Paper
Maker Model Aircrafts
Place made Australia: New South Wales, Sydney
Date made c 1942
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Description

Small boxed balsawood kit of a Hawker Hurricane. Box is printed in one colour (red). Obverse is illustrated with a biplane accompanied by the legend 'MODEL CRAFT AEROPLANE KIT / MODEL AIRCRAFTS, SYDNEY'. The box sides are printed with the same wording, with the address added, and 'EST 1928'. Reverse is printed with the Instructions. Box ends are stamped 'HAWKER HURRICANE'. Kit consists of a block of balsa, a thin printed balsa sheet, a small square of sandpaper and a printed square of markings.

History / 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’.

Related information