SCHUCO small airliners, predecessors to Schabak etc.

[Tone]

Schuco small airliners from the early 70s included the DC-8, the 707, the Ilyushin (Iliouchine) Il-62, the DC-10 and 747. I think the company means "Super 62" rather than "63" in this case, but S. Richardson's book shows a real "stretch" Schuco DC-8 in VIASA (Venezuela) colors.

[grwebster]

i have a few schuco, but never tried to build a collection. I have their lear, two fokkers and a few airliners.

[angelreader]

I have a delightful little corrugated Junkers D.1 single engine with rubber tyres,also a Junkers Ju.52 3/m that I picked up at a German Troddlemarket,they did quite a few colourscheme variations.
Barry.

[MichaelB]

Lovely little things...it's a shame that Schabak itself went under a few years ago - a victim of their own success! While their 1/600 series of casts were very nice, the sloppy decal applications and oversize undercarriage destroyed any close looks. Herpa one upped them and eventually took the throne in this area. Even now they are under assault by the numerous 1/400 issuing companies and the steadily increasing quality of the product!
Too much goodness...
Michael

[fliegerii]

Schabak never changed the manufacturing technology, as that would have become too expensive considering their German location. Also the models were not destinated to the "usual" collectors as of today, but more "souvenir" type for airline guests. Obviously flying has become that much common, that nobody had the idea anymore to get a small model of the aircraft which he used and of course it was not possible to compete against the meanwhile raised up China based model makers like Herpa, Gemini, etc. In the end there were no more buyers for that models. Finally the inventory was sold to ... China and they are re-issuing the planes now with better finish. Nevertheless future of "New Schabak" is unclear, as the scale 1/600 is not very popular.

I think, that the Schabak models "Made in Germany" could become a very interesting field for collectors in the future. They were the last makers for large volume cast model planes in Western Europe and the specimens are still inexpensive.

[MichaelB]

1/600 is an architectural scale and the Schabak pieces fit into a lot of airport scale models! I usually saw them with the decals removed and painted in an overall gray.
Yes...as give aways or promotions by the airlines. A nice follow on to the various small plastic planes from the '50s and '60s.
I have limited my Schabak collection to the airline sets - although there have been many more than I have and I have many more loose. I will point out that the 1/250 Schabak DC3 typically sold for $12 but the newer DC-3 models in that scale push $40 from vendors! Are they that much better? ...I doubt it...
Some sets: Boeing factory
Pan Am 3 plane set
Delta 3 plane historic set (DC3, DC4, Constellation)
EAL 3 plane set
Delta 5 plane set
Ecuatoriana 2 plane set
...and etc...

[grwebster]

Back in the early days of TPN, I met and became friends with a french collector, Maurice Mouraux of Toulouse who had, what he claimed, was the entire Schuco airplane line, mint and boxed. I visited him several times over the years before he passed away and while I didn't verify his claim, to see them all stacked up in their boxes in a cabinet three or four deep was an incredible sight. Some of you may remember Maurice as he was the author of the articles on the 1950s series of Solido aircraft in TPN. He sold off all his collection and I wonder where the Schuco planes are today.

[MichaelB]

On another board Tony D. Showed a small die cast plane from Bandai. A number of "other" makers tried to get into this market in the '80s and there are a few oddballs out there - I guess the Bandai gets added to the list.
The two small Lintoy 1/600 die cast pieces come to mind, and I have a number of "gift sets" of UAL planes from ZEE DynaFlites as well. I would suspect that Herpa had a hand in this change over...while being a German based company all their production was from the far east.
We are now beyond the "shake out" period with Herpa being the most common of the "common" producers. There are many, many promotions for the various airlines - too many to keep up with, but it's nice to see a steady supply of models where once there were very few.
One of the early "specials" that were hard to get from Herpa were the various Cathay Pacific planes. They wouldn't allow Herpa to sell them directly, but had to be purchased using promotions in the seat back of Cathy Pacific planes. Thanks to eBay, they could be had.
Does anyone have one of the ads from Cathy Pacific at that time? I'd like to see how they presented the series.
Most in flight magazines have or have had ads for models in their own colors...they are quite common now from all vendors. The exception may still be UPS. Last time I checked at one vendor they had all their aircraft listed with UPS colors, but a small note indicated that they were for sale only to UPS employees and UPS itself! Funny how that works!
So..the beat goes on and it shows how difficult it can be to pigeon hole some of the discussed topics...here we have "premiums", "give aways", Schabak, Schuco, 1/600, Herpa, Zee and UPS...
...just as long as we're all having fun...
Michael

[dasimperator]

I've a couple Schabak DC-3 issues

My_Schabak_DC-3s_a.JPG (132.11 KiB) Viewed 7279 times

My_Schabak_DC-3s_a.JPG (132.11 KiB) Viewed 7279 times

The Pan American model is rather poorly done - instead of being painted or decalled it seems a film with the paint and livery marks was applied to the thing. Nasty.

[uk 75]

Schabak are very misunderstood. The DAC Forum contains some really stupid rants against the firm
by Herpa and Gemini Jets collectors. The point about the planes is that they are toys, repeat toys. Unlike
Herpa they come in nice boxes showing the airline (admittedly unlicenced) and they have robust metal wheels
that do not break off when over enthusiastic visitors want to do a full on landing with Air Force One.
I have given up making this point on other forums.
I think Schabak and their successors need to recognise that demand even for the Herpa and Gemini models
is now waning. People seem to want the old 1-200 scale again. There will, however, always be demand from
little (and not so little) boys for a cheap cheerful, but recognisable toy of the latest Emirates 380 or whatever
(in my case it was the beautiful Schuco BOAC Boeing 747 in its white and blue BOAC box)