by MichaelB » Sun Feb 21, 2010 4:07 am
I have buckets of these as well, Tony. For a "no name" brand they certainly had a lot of names!
I don't know where Richardson got the "Home Co" name, but I have never seen these presented as anything but under the name of whoever was selling them. Yes, I agree, they were just about the last of the "real" airline branded cheap planes. That said, the liveries were surprisingly well done.
A spotting note here, all these should have their model number cast in underneath. They used an "F" prefix, then a series of numbers: F801, F802 and so on.
I have never seen a catalog, a listing or any reference to the numbers themselves.
They also produced two fighters, F807 F-16 and F808 F/A-18. IIRC these had those "orange" canopies and were the predecessors of the more truly generic later issues already mentioned which also featured orange canopies.
I show 5 liveries for the 747SP F801
5 for A300 F802
3 for 767 F803
4 for DC10 F804
5 for 727 F805
2 for 1011 F806
Hmmm....no SAS 727s in real life, eh? I'll look into that. SAS tended towards Douglas products.
Jasman and Smart Choice were/are two additional resellers. The older Sky Wings and Imperial issues featured "silver" wings. Other suppliers were Magic, Wing Warriors, Tak-A-Toy, Skies of Freedom, and Boley Super Jet.
Again...I have never seen a "Home Co" card or reference other than the Richardsons and it's tough to tell if additional material has been removed from the casts.
A nice set...much nicer that one would expect to find in the grocery store.
Mine are all at the bottom of the heap, so don't expect any photos anytime soon....
Thanks for posting, Tony!
Michael