Twenty Year Old SCHABAK

[Tone]

I bought these planes around 1990. They are from the Plane Shop in New York City (now the Red Caboose, next to the Holiday Inn on 45th Street) and FEE, Far Eastern Enterprise, a mail order firm with a nice color catalog showing all these toy models.

My goal was to have one of each casting, and to choose an interesting livery. Collectors despise Schabak today and one can see the reasons here: the size was too small, the castings were not precise, the decorations often frayed at the edges, and improper packaging resulted in broken parts. These were all made in Germany, however, and do have a solid feel for their size.

Convair 440


DC-4


DC-6


Viscount 708


Super Constellation



Comet IV


Caravelle


TriStar


737-400


747-200


747-300


747-400


Ilyushin (Iliouchine) Il-76


Ilyushin Il-96


A-300

[MichaelB]

I always liked the Schabaks and have lots of them. However, I was happy to see Herpa come along and have the entire genre begin to bump up it's quality standards. However, the Schabaks sold for $6-10 or so, and the new crop of Herpas are at $20 while Gemini and etc are double that. That's the price of going from a "toy" to an "adult collectible"....
But at least they read the market potential well...
And it's an old story too..."old world" producer gives in to foreign production (China, of course!). They dropped the production costs dramatically and raised the retail! Winner! China now owns the industry, although this latest crop of Skybusters came from Thailand....not the first time that's happened...
Michael